On this day in 1914, Martha, the last-known living Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Her death at age 29 after a lifetime in captivity marked the disappearance of her once-abundant species from the world. And it made her name synonymous with species extinction at human hands. But what happened?

Before the second half of the nineteenth century, the Passenger Pigeon was the most common bird in the United States, with a population numbering in the billions. Flocks of pigeons flying overhead were so dense that they could darken the skies. But a combination of overhunting and habitat destruction sent this species into decline, and by the turn of the century, it was considered extinct in the wild.

Photo: Enno Meyer, CC0 1.0, Wikimedia Commons

On this day in 1831, 22-year-old Charles Darwin set sail on the HMS Beagle for a trip around the world. For most of the next five years, the Beagle surveyed the coast of South America, leaving Darwin free to explore the continent and islands, including the Galápagos. He filled dozens of notebooks with careful observations on animals, plants, and geology, and collected thousands of specimens, which he sent home for further study. Darwin later called the Beagle voyage "by far the most important event in my life," saying it "determined my whole career."

Portrait of Charles Darwin by George Richmond

On June 2, 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant laid the cornerstone for the Museum’s first building at 77th Street. Up until this point, the Museum had occupied space in the Central Park Arsenal but quickly outgrew that space, and secured Manhattan Square, a block of land across the street from Central Park, between West 77th and 81st Streets.

From an article in the June 3, 1874 New York Tribune:

“The ceremony was performed by the President, who with handsomely silver-mounted trowel spread the mortar over the box and covered it from sight. As the stone was lowered over it, the President struck it with the trowel three times.”

Learn more about the Museum’s nearly 150-year history.

Today is the 156th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Tracing the evolution of Charles Darwin’s thoughts about evolution is becoming an increasingly accessible project, thanks to a growing cache of publicly available digitized Darwin manuscripts on the Museum’s site.

The Museum’s Darwin Manuscripts Project has made available 30,000 high-resolution and color images of manuscript pages, drawings, book abstracts, and other writings, complete with transcriptions that decipher the famous naturalist’s handwriting, written by Darwin between 1835 and 1882.

“These notebooks, marginalia, portfolios, and abstracts were the basis for eight of Darwin’s books, beyond the Origin, that set down, enlarged, and defended the theory of evolution by natural selection,” said Darwin Manuscripts Project Director David Kohn. “In these writings, you can see Darwin as a thinker, a keen-eyed collector, an inspired observer, and a determined experimenter.”

Learn more about the Darwin Manuscripts Project. 

On November 25, 1915, visionary physicist Albert Einstein set down the general theory of relativity. Via The New York Times:

Ready to learn more? Get to know Albert Einstein, the physicist and passionate humanitarian in our traveling exhibition, and listen to our recent Frontiers Lecture: What is Relativity and Why Should You Care? Astrophysicist and educator Jeffrey Bennett introduces the basic tenets of Einstein's theory, and underscores its importance to our modern understanding of the universe.

Listen to the podcast on SoundCloud. 

Today is the 41st anniversary of the discovery of “Lucy,” one of the most complete skeletons of early hominids found to date. 

This artist's reconstruction shows how Lucy might have looked in life. The skeleton cast is on display in the Museum's Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, and consists of bones from a single individual, presumably female, who stood well under 4 feet (1.2 m) tall. 

Members of Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, lived in eastern Africa, where they ventured down from the trees and roamed the grassy woodlands. Studies of the skeleton have shown that Lucy walked upright like modern humans, on two limbs rather than on four. But her short legs, small brain, and cone-shaped rib cage more closely resembles those of apes. The discovery and subsequent study of Lucy revealed that human ancestors were walking on two feet before taking the major evolutionary step of developing larger brains, and well before the earliest stone tools came into use. 

The 3.18-million-year-old Lucy was named after the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which the researchers listened to as they celebrated their remarkable find.

See more from the Hall of Human Origins.

On this day in 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York City and the surrounding area. The hurricane was huge, but it was not the windiest storm to ever hit the area. Sandy’s biggest threat was the huge pileup of water — called a storm surge — those winds produced. On top of this, the massive storm surge hit at almost the same moment as an unusually high tide.

New York City has 835 kilometers (520 miles) of coastline, much of it low-lying, so officials expected flooding. But the deluge was worse than anyone thought it would be. In lower Manhattan, seawater poured over floodwalls, flooding roads, subways, and electrical stations. Many were left without transportation or power. The seaside communities were hit worst. As waves crashed into the coast, the storm surge flooded homes and businesses, destroying entire neighborhoods. In the end, the storm took 43 lives, and left many people injured and without homes. It also caused at least $19 billion in damage.

Learn more about this historic hurricane.

Happy Birthday, Theodore Roosevelt!

Happy birthday to Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, as well as an ardent naturalist and visionary conservationist.

Born on this day in 1858, Roosevelt had a sharp eye for natural history and a love for the outdoors. While President, he designated five national parks, and in 1906, Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act, which allowed the president to designate national monuments—sites of scientific or cultural importance on federal lands—without waiting out the long, often contentious congressional process of adding national parks. All told, he launched programs that would protect 230 million acres of land.

Learn more about the life of Theodore Roosevelt.

On this day in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States. 

While Roosevelt was visiting the Adirondacks, President McKinley was shot and died eight days later. A hasty inauguration ceremony for Roosevelt was held in Buffalo, New York. In his first address to Congress on December 3, Roosevelt insisted that government should preserve wilderness and natural resources “for the use and benefit of our people as a whole.” 

Learn more about Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy as the Conservation President.

On this day in 1977, Voyager 1 was launched into space carrying a “Golden Record” with the sounds of planet Earth.

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spent more than a decade exploring our planetary neighbors, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune before turning towards interstellar space. On February 17, 1998, Voyager 1 became the most distant human-made object, and both spacecraft continue to send back data and in August 2012, Voyager I left our solar system. While it will be 40,000 years before they approach another planetary system, NASA believes the "Golden Records" may still be readable, able to "communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials."

On August 24, AD 79, Mount Vesuvius, a stratovolcano, erupted. When Mount Vesuvius roared to life, the doomed residents of nearby Pompeii had no idea they were living in the shadow of a volcano. What happened?

Vesuvius had erupted before. Just not within the memory of those going about their business in Pompeii’s bustling streets when the volcano awoke. Today, more than 3 million people live in Vesuvius’ shadow and could be at risk when Vesuvius springs to life again.

Learn more about the science behind the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Image: AMNH/K14221

Happy Third Anniversary, Curiosity!

It's been three years since Curiosity set down on Mars, and in that time, the rover has traveled 11 miles. That might not sound like much, but the travel has been over rough and tumble terrain, and it has sent back invaluable scientific data on the geology and environment of the red planet. From perusing rock formations to getting a new perspective on sunspots, the Curiosity rover has sent home a wealth of new information on the solar system since it landed on August 6, 2012. 

Want to learn about Curiosity's quest for organic carbon, which could be a telltale sign of life in Mars' past? Check out this short documentary from Science Bulletins: 

More interested in taking a step back and getting the skinny on its journey to Earth's nearest planetary neighbor? Or maybe you want to relive the breathtaking rover landing that was watched live by countless viewers back home? We've got you covered on both fronts:

Since Curiosity touched down three years ago today, NASA scientists in charge of the mission, like project scientist John Grotzinger, have also come to the Museum to discuss their research with the public and put new groundbreaking new information about the history of Mars in perspective. You can listen to Grotzinger talk about the Curiosity mission in one of our Frontiers lectures here.

On July 20, 1969, exactly 46 years ago, an American crew landed on the Moon. –the first people ever to visit another world. As 600 million people watched on TV, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two men ever to walk on the Moon. Read more about this historic landing. 

Ten years ago today, a 9.3 magnitude underwater earthquake—one of the most powerful ever recorded—caused a sudden vertical lift in the seafloor off the coast of Sumatra, launching a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Tsunamis are rare in this region, and the countries whose coastlines were hit by colossal waves that day had no warning systems in place. More than 226,000 people perished, and more than 1 million were left homeless. 

Scientists around the world are working to better understand events like the one that took place 10 years ago—and to help reduce risk from future tsunamis globally.

Head to the Museum blog to learn how researchers model earthquakes and tsunamis in an effort to help improve warning systems.

On July 20, 1969, with 600 million people watching on TV, an American crew landed on the Moon--the first people ever to walk on another world. The Apollo 11 mission had three crew members: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, who piloted the craft that would return them to Earth, while the others became the first two men ever to walk its surface.

Learn more about this historic event. 

Huge asteroids and comets don't collide with our planet very often, so scientists can't easily observe the effects of a major impact.

But 20 years ago this month, in July of 1994, researchers got a glimpse of what can happen when a sizeable comet crashes into a planet--in this case, Jupiter. The fiery results offered clues to how devastating the ancient impact on Earth might have been.

The comet named Shoemaker-Levy 9, already shattered into many pieces, slammed into Jupiter in a series of impacts. Many of the fragments were between one and three kilometers (0.6 and 1.9 miles) across in size. The multiple impacts sent fireballs high above Jupiter's atmosphere and left dark scars so large our own planet would have fit inside.

Learn more about planetary impacts in the Cullman Hall of the Universe.