Chronology 



The following listing is a representative selection of Smithsonian events during fiscal 

 year 1990. 



October 



Program: The National Air and Space Museum launched a major 16-month series of 

 public and by-invitation-only lectures, films, and symposia on "The Legacy of Strategic 

 Bombing." Speakers included physicists Philip Morrison and Freeman Dyson, writer 

 Kurt Vonnegut, Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, and economist John Kenneth Galbraith. 



October 



Acquisition: A collection of 1,500 early stereographs and a unique photo album of Sioux 

 Indians and their families, one of the largest and rarest collections of early American 

 Indian photographs, was acquired by the National Anthropological Archives of the 

 National Museum of Natural History from George Allen, a Kansas collector. 



October 



Research: Radar images of a small asteroid that passed close to Earth were obtained by 

 Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory scientists at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and by 

 colleagues elsewhere. The images were the first to provide direct evidence of a 

 bifurcated mass in such objects and revealed that the asteroid may be the result of a 

 collision between two separate objects, each one-half mile long. 



October 



Acquisition: The Smithsonian Institution Libraries purchased a large portion of the trade 

 catalogue collection of some 56,500 items once held by the Franklin Institute, 

 Philadelphia. The catalogues cover the full range of developments in American 

 manufacturing, agriculture, and technology. The Regents' Collections Acquisitions Fund 

 provided funds for the purchase. 



