Januaiy 



January 2J 



■ Exhibition "Women in Action: Rebels and Reform- 

 ers, 1920— 1980" opened at the National Museum of 

 American History. The exhibition was sponsored by the 

 League of Women Voters to celebrate the 75th anniver- 

 sary of woman suffrage. 



Januaiy I 



■ Name Change The Office of Museum Programs 

 changed its name to the Center for Museum Studies. 

 The new name more accurately reflects the mission and 

 work of the office and better accommodates efforts to 

 establish networks with college and university museum 

 studies programs. 



Januaij 7 



■ New Facility The Visitors Center of the 

 Smithsonian's Whipple Observatory in Arizona offic- 

 ially opened to the public, presenting exhibits on astron- 

 omy, natural science, cultural history (and Smithsonian 

 history), and the environment. 



January 12 



■ Research Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory- 

 scientists and their colleagues found by far the best 

 evidence for the existence of massive black holes. The 

 discovery was based on radio observations of swirling 

 gas orbiting a very dense concentration of material with 

 the mass of about 40 million Suns. 



January 16 



■ Lecture The Office of the Provost sponsored the 

 annual Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture with keynote 

 speaker Harold Hongju Koh, professor of international 

 law and director of the Orville Schell Jr. Center for 

 International Human Rights at the Yale University- 

 Law School. His lecture was titled "Aliens in our 



Beloved Community'." 



January 20 



■ Award Ceremony The Slovak Academy of Sciences 

 presented the Aurel Stodola Golden Plaque to Slovak- 

 American physicist Igor Bazovsky in a ceremony at the 

 Smithsonian. 



■ Radio Advertising Campaign The first radio advertise- 

 ment ran in the Office of Public Affairs' Black History 

 Month campaign, one of three annual radio advertising 

 campaigns aimed at local African American audiences, 

 ages 25 to 45. OPA prepared the ad copy, and three 

 local radio stations— WKYS, WPGC, and WHUR— 

 produced the ads. The other campaigns were geared to 

 spring school-break activities and to summer Festival of 

 American Folklife events at the Smithsonian. 



January 24 



■ Members' Event Contributing Members attended a 

 private viewing of the exhibition "Contemporary Crafts 

 and the Saxe Collection" at the Renwick Gallery of the 

 National Museum of American Art. 



Januaiy 28 



■ Conference Prominent musicians and promoters who 

 helped shape the local contemporary musical scene dis- 

 cussed the history of Latin music in Washington, DC, 

 at a conference sponsored by the Anacostia Museum. 



January 28—February 13 



■ Study Tour For the first time, Smithsonian Associ- 

 ates journeyed to Vietnam and Cambodia on two inter- 

 national study tours sponsored by The Smithsonian 

 Associates. 



January 30— February 18 



■ Tour The Archives of American Art sponsored an 

 exploration of extraordinary architectural and artistic 

 sights, "Temple-Mountains and Dragon Kings." Tour- 

 ing on land and sea, this adventure began in Bangkok 

 and continued to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. 

 Archives Trustee Council member Dr. Helen Jessup was 

 the guest lecturer. 



F ebruary—September 



■ Exhibition "Virgil Whyte 'All-Girl' Band," a display 

 of photographs, documents, and artifacts, was on view 

 at the National Museum of American History. The exhi- 

 bition showed how a touring U.S.O. band promoted 

 equal job opportunity for women during World War II 

 because the band's director, Virgil Whyte, demanded 

 that his female musicians receive union pay equal to 

 that of male musicians of comparable skills. 



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