The San Diego Natural History Museum is a museum located in Balboa Park in San Diego, California. It was founded in 1874 as the San Diego Society of Natural History. It is the third oldest scientific institution west of the Mississippi and the oldest in Southern California. The present location of the museum was dedicated on January 14, 1933. A major addition to the museum was dedicated in April 2001, doubling exhibit space.
History
First fifty years
Founded in 1874, the San Diego Society of Natural History is the oldest scientific institution in southern California, and the third oldest west of the Mississippi. In its initial years, the Society was the region's primary source of scientific culture, serving a small but growing community eager for information about its natural resources. Early society members established a weather station, petitioned to create Torrey Pines State Reserve and Anza Borrego Desert State Park, and garnered support for the San Diego Zoological Society.
The Museum's collection and building have changed little since Victorian times, and it is sometimes described as a "museum of a museum".
Collection
The building is a ‘cabinet-style’ museum designed to showcase a wide-ranging and comprehensive zoological collection, and has changed little in over a century. Often described as a ‘museum of a museum’, its 10,000 exhibits provide a glimpse of the natural world that has delighted generations of visitors since the doors opened in 1857.
As the collection is unique in range and vintage, the exhibits are a product of their age, with faded and worn pelts and visible marks from bullets and rough taxidermy. Larger specimens are displayed in large, wood-framed glass cases while smaller ones are kept under glass, protected from sunlight by moveable leather panels. The main room is heated by an underfloor system similar to a Roman hypocaust.
The museum opened on 8 June 1997 as part of the cultural and tourist development of the town of Axioupoli in the Kilkis regional unit in Central Macedonia, Greece. It is housed in the town’s old primary school.
The purpose of the museum is educational. Its activities include popularising research, devising educational programs, and publishing. There is no fee for entrance.
It is divided into five sections. The first, cosmogony, starts with an analysis of the gradual creation of the star systems out of the original nebula. It continues with the Solar System, illustrating its gradual evolution and the movements of the planets. This is followed by the creation of the Earth and the geotectonic evolution of Greece’s land-mass.
The palaeontology section analyses the evolution of life on Earth, from the primitive life forms of 3,500 million years ago, blue-green algae (“Cyanophyceae”) and bacteria, to the evolution of invertebrates, plants, vertebrates, and human beings.
A museum (/mjuˈziːəm/; myoo-zee-um) is an institution that cares for (conserves) a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and specialists to serving the general public. The goal of serving researchers is increasingly shifting to serving the general public.
With an estimated population of 1,381,069 as of July 1, 2014, San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest in California. San Diego is the birthplace of California and is known for its mild year-round climate, natural deep-water harbor, extensive beaches, long association with the U.S. Navy, and recent emergence as a healthcare and biotechnology development center.
Historically home to the Kumeyaay people, San Diego was the first site visited by Europeans on what is now the West Coast of the United States. Upon landing in San Diego Bay in 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the entire area for Spain, forming the basis for the settlement of Alta California 200 years later. The Presidio and Mission of San Diego, founded in 1769, formed the first European settlement in what is now California. In 1821, San Diego became part of newly independent Mexico, and in 1850, became part of the United States following the Mexican–American War and the admission of California to the union.
The Santa Fe Depot (as it was originally designated) officially opened on March 8, 1915, to accommodate visitors to the Panama-California Exposition. The depot was completed during a particularly optimistic period in the City's development, and represents the battle waged by the City of San Diego to become the West Coast terminus of the Santa Fe Railway system’s transcontinental railroad, a fight that was ultimately lost to the City of Los Angeles.
Unscrew your face from the laptop screen, See the people, the places in your, magazine, They're a bigheaded bunch, d'ya know what I mean, Someone made them out of plastercine, Chorus I'm the morning rain, It's me again, I wont go away, I'm the morning rain, It's me again, I wont, go, a, way. Come down off your barbed wire fence, What you're saying sounds stupid, makes know sense, It may be used later in your defence, It may be used later as, evidence for the Chorus Undo your head from the sink plug chain, Unscrew the cheap wine, and drink like a drain, You may never want to waltz again, You may never want to walk away from the Chorus Pack your bags, your rooms for let, They're putting up the barricades and laying off all bets, I've never seen so many people, smoke so many cigarettes, Pack your bags now, your room for rent.....
Visitors enjoy food and drinks on the rooftop of the San DiegoNaturalHistory Museum during Nat at Night. (San Diego Natural History Museum). A view of the rooftop of the San Diego Natural History Museum ... (San Diego Natural History Museum).
Tonight, and the third Friday of every month, locals can visit Nat at Night at the San DiegoNaturalHistory Museum ... mingei.org San Diego Natural History Museum ... (San Diego Natural History Museum) ... (San Diego Natural History Museum).
“San Diego... Also unlike many documentaries filmed in national parks, “San Diego ... America’s Wildest City” titled “Wild San Diego” will be playing at the San Diego NaturalHistory Museum in Balboa Park for the next seven years ... ‘San Diego.
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San Diego Union-Tribune
23 Mar 2025
San Diego Union-Tribune
23 Mar 2025