View From the Top of the Washington Monument

If you’re scared of heights this video isn’t for you. On May 13, workers wore helmet cams as they repaired the last of the scaffolding around the 555-foot-tall monument. The next step is to wrap fabric around the monument and attach lights. The damage caused by the August 2011 earthquake should be completed in 2014.

Ed note: How engineers investigated the Washington Monument from hundreds of feet above the ground.

h/t WAMU

Samurai with Katana and Wakizashi

Felice Beato’s 1860 photograph of a Japanese samurai.

Ed note: Meet Jinichi Kawakami, Japan’s last ninja.

Wrongfully Admitted to Sunbury Asylum

In 1945, Maraquita Sargeant, a mother of five young children, was admitted against her will to Sunbury Mental Asylum in Australia. Her youngest child, Tony, has spent the last 50 years of his life searching for answers.

Walking the grounds of the now vacant and dilapidated Sunbury, Tony claims his mother was the victim of an era where there were no contraceptives and divorce was not allowed. Having five children already, Maraquita was not willing to give birth again and soon after was admitted. In 1946, she wrote a letter to the governor of Victoria stating she had been “unjustly detained.” The governor responded with a letter to the mental hygiene director and stated the letter “appears to be from a sane person.” The hygiene director’s response can only be described as chilling:

“She is definitely insane and if released would be a threat to certain prominent people’s reputations.”

With the director alerted to Maraquita’s attempt to write the governor, he shipped her to the Royal Melbourne Hospital where she received a lobotomy—a new and experimental procedure at the time that involved separating the front of her brain from the back. The operation was considered a failure. Maraquita spent her time at Sunbury in the sewing room repairing linen and ironing. Despite the injustice, Maraquita remained optimistic and in 1967 she was released. - Continue reading and watch the video at Smithsonian.com.

Ed note: This video was submitted to our In Motion video contest. The deadline to submit your video is May 31. Head over to the contest page for more details.

Will the Real Great Gatsby Please Stand Up?

Photo: © Warner Bros / courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection

This Day in History: A German Torpedo Sinks the British Liner Lusitania, Killing 1,198

When the First World War began, in the summer of 1914, the Lusitania was among the most glamorous and celebrated ships in the world—at one time both the largest and fastest afloat. But the British passenger liner would earn a far more tragic place in history on May 7, 1915, when it was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland, with the loss of nearly 1,200 lives.

Among the prominent American victims were such luminaries of the day as the theatrical impresario Charles Frohman, the popular writer Elbert Hubbard and the very rich Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. But the list of passengers who missed the Lusitania’s last voyage was equally illustrious. - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com for the stories of eight famous men and women who were lucky enough to dodge the torpedo.

Ed note: Three years before the Lusitania sank, several notable people missed the Titanic, including a world-famous novelist, a radio pioneer and America’s biggest tycoons.

The Lost Map of the Hindenburg

On this day in 1937, the hydrogen-filled airship went down in flames in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

Ed note: Take a closer look at a firsthand account of the Hindenburg disaster.

Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Eating a Child

The harsh winter of 1609 in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable. A recent excavation at the historic site discovered the carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the season commonly called the “Starving Time.” But a few other newly discovered bones in particular, though, tell a far more gruesome story: the dismemberment and cannibalization of a 14-year-old English girl. Find out how researchers made this discovery at Smithsonian.com.

We Had No Idea What Alexander Graham Bell Sounded Like. Until Now

A dramatic application of digital technology has allowed researchers to recover Alexander Graham Bell’s voice from a recording held by the Smithsonian. From the 1880s on, until his death in 1922, Bell gave an extensive collection of laboratory materials to the Smithsonian Institution, including more than 400 discs and cylinders, like the one above, he used as he tried his hand at recording sound. Listen to the words Bell spoke 128 years ago here.

Photo: Richard Strauss / NMAH, SI

April 25, 1947: The White House Bowling Alley Opens

On this day in 1947, President Truman inaugurated the two-lane White House bowling alley. 

Although Truman did not play much (he was more into poker), he helped start the White House Bowling League. The bowlers included Secret Service agents and groundskeepers. Unfortunately, the alley was closed in 1955, but a new one was built in the Eisenhower Building. 

Love bowling? Check out Independent Lens’ “Bowling through the Decades” timeline .  

Images (top to bottom): View from the end of the bowling alley in the White House 1948, bowling alley in the White House 1948, long view of the bowling alley in the White House 1948 (Truman Library/National Archives).

Via: pbsthisdayinhistory

How Do You 3-D Scan a Dinosaur?

Using laser scanners and high-tech computer software, Vince Rossi and Adam Metallo are recreating a digital Dinosaur Hall before it’s dismantled.

Ed note: Ultimately, Rossi and Metallo dream of digitizing all 137 million of the objects in the Smithsonian’s collections. More on the “Laser Cowboys.”