National Air and Space Museum curator Allan Needell describes the sea landing and recovery process for the Apollo 11 command module, from the first manned landing on the moon. He looks at the boilerplate command module now displayed in the Steve F. Udvar-Hazy Center, once used by the Apollo 11 team to practice module egress, and the flotation spheres and collar displayed with the boilerplate.
The manager of African American history interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg, Harvey Bakari, talks about how interpretation of African American history has changed at Colonial Williamsburg over the past three decades.
Ed Chappell, director of architectural research at Colonial Williamsburg, talks about the research required to restore buildings to their colonial-era state, and how perception of how a building should be restored and presented changes over time and with the appearance of new information.
Harvey Bakari, manager of African American history interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg, discusses the history of the African American interpretation program there, and the roles of African Americans in the Revolutionary War.
Rex Ellis, vice president of Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area, traces the history and evolution of the interpretation of African American history in Colonial Williamsburg.
Colonial Williamsburg curator John Watson discusses the considerations curators and preservationists must make in deciding how to conserve, preserve, restore, and display historical artifacts.
Louise Kale, director of the Historic Campus, outlines the history and restoration of the College of William and Mary's Wren Building, completed in 1700.
According to the Library of Congress Webcasts site:
"The 100th anniversary of the official use of American personal identity tags, affectionately known as 'dog tags,' recently passed without fanfare. Dog tags are highly personal items to warriors of every service and to their families as well. Each dog tag carries its own human-interest story. The acts of receiving the dog tag, hanging it around the neck, and feeling it against the body constitute a silent statement of commitment. The tag itself individualizes the human being who wears it, despite his or her role as a small part of a huge and faceless organization. While the armed forces demand obedience and duty to a higher cause, dog tags, hanging under service members' shirts and close to their chests, remind them of their individuality. They bring comfort and help calm the fears of soldiers facing death: 'I do not want to be forgotten; I do not want to become an unknown."
In this interview produced by The Library of Congress Webcasts, author Jeanne Guillemin discusses her new book, American Anthrax: Fear, Crime, and the Investigation of the Nation's Deadliest Bioterror Attack, which offers a definitive account of the five-year investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks.
This website offers more than 50,000 slides and photographs that document the history of the American period in Micronesia from 1947 to 1988. The image collection can be browsed or the visitor can sample the types of images in the collection through 12 short animated image tours. The topics of the image tours give an idea of the variety of images available in the collection: parades, dancing, voting, agriculture, stone money, canoes, architecture, women, leaders, education and children, health and hospitals, and men. The only search capability on the site is a Google search of the photograph description files. Additional resources include a map of Oceania and a link to the Hawaii War Records Archive. This archive is a useful source of images for those researching, writing, or teaching the cultural history of the Pacific Islands.