On August 10, 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes the second woman—and first Jewish woman—to serve on the Supreme Court. Already a champion for women’s rights, Ginsburg becomes a pop culture icon during her 27 years on the court.

After a decade of debate about how best to spend a bequest left to America from an obscure English scientist, President James K. Polk signs the Smithsonian Institution Act into law on August 10, 1846.

In 1829, James Smithson died in Italy, leaving behind a will with a peculiar footnote. In the event that his only nephew died without any heirs, Smithson decreed that the whole of his estate would go to “the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Smithson’s curious bequest to a country that he had never visited aroused significant attention on both sides of the Atlantic.

Smithson had been a fellow of the venerable Royal Society of London from the age of 22, publishing numerous scientific papers on mineral composition, geology, and chemistry. In 1802, he overturned popular scientific opinion by proving that zinc carbonates were true carbonate minerals, and one type of zinc carbonate was later named smithsonite in his honor.

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Citation Information

Article Title

Smithsonian Institution created

AuthorHistory.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/smithsonian-institution-created

Access Date

August 10, 2022

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 6, 2021

Original Published Date

November 24, 2009

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

BY

 HISTORY.COM EDITORS

*************************************

HISTORY.com Editors

On August 10, 1776, news reaches London that the Americans had drafted the Declaration of Independence.

Until the Declaration of Independence formally transformed the 13 British colonies into states, both Americans and the British saw the conflict centered in Massachusetts as a local uprising within the British empire.

To King George III, it was a colonial rebellion, and to the Americans, it was a struggle for their rights as British citizens. However, when Parliament continued to oppose any reform and remained unwilling to negotiate with the American rebels and instead hired Hessians, German mercenaries, to help the British army crush the rebellion, the Continental Congress began to pass measures abolishing British authority in the colonies.

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