SEASON TWO
LET’S EAT!
Join host Tom Cavanagh as he goes behind the scenes at the Smithsonian to cook Native American dishes with the executive chef of Mitsitam Café; discovers the origins of the American coffee break at the National Museum of American History and visits the National Museum of Dentistry, where he learns how food takes a toll on our teeth.
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TOP SECRET
Join host Tom Cavanagh as he goes behind the scenes at the Smithsonian to unlock some of the Smithsonian’s most compelling mysteries. Can an artist outsmart the world's top spies? How does a missile filled with mail make a political statement to the world? These answers will be answered.
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NATURE’S VAULT
Join host Tom Cavanagh as he goes behind the scenes of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama to track sloths; search the Panama Canal for clues to the creation of the Panamanian Isthmus; and rise sixteen stories atop the rainforest in a construction crane to do bug research.
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CRYSTAL BALL
Join host Tom Cavanagh as we venture into the Smithsonian’s vaults and labs to look at designers who have shaped our future, sneak a peek at a museum of the future, and talk to scientists helping to preserve the future of the tropical rainforest.
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GOING, GOING, GONE
Join host Tom Cavanagh as he goes behind the scenes to see what might be called “extreme conservation”: like saving animals from the brink of extinction; finding new ways to preserve a provocative work of art; or reviving an entire genre of music. And we'll learn what Smithsonian experts are doing to protect the best aspects of our world for future generations.
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SEX 101
We may not like to talk about it, but sex is everywhere... even at the Smithsonian. The topic may not be featured in major museum exhibitions, but the vaults and labs of the Smithsonian feature fascinating stories about “the birds and the bees.” Join host Tom Cavanagh as he goes behind the scenes of the Smithsonian to find evidence of romance and yes, sex.
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VILLAINS AND ROGUES
Join host Tom Cavanagh as we explore the crime “scene” at the Smithsonian’s vaults: photographic evidence from the Crime of the Century; everyone’s favorite natural villain, the snake; and America’s first “Lone Gunman”: John Wilkes Booth.
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SEASON ONE
FAMOUS DONORS
Tom takes us back to the origins of the Smithsonian’s collections. He explores Teddy Roosevelt’s hunting trophies, John Steinbeck’s sea urchins and Phyllis Diller’s joke file. They, along with 50,000 items donated annually, add to the immense number of artifacts the Smithsonian holds in its museums.
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SUPERLATIVES!
Tom is on a mission: to discover what it means to be the best, the tiniest, the coldest and the most misunderstood. He’s exploring the art of taxidermy at the National Museum of Natural History, the music of a 300-year-old Stradivarius at the National Museum of American History and unique technology that scrunches the Bible onto one tiny microchip.
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NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Tom tries to unravel the idea of "Home Sweet Home." He visits the National Air and Space Museum’s collection of space suits, learns about tipis at the National Museum of the American Indian and finds an astonishing array of life in a thimble of sand.
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BEAUTY
Tom explores the many faces of beauty through the eyes of scientists. Three Smithsonian curators offer their surprising perspectives on the elusive meaning of true beauty as it applies to their work with advertising, orchids and ants. Tom shows us that beauty isn’t just in the eye of the beholder.
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FIRSTS
In this episode, Tom explores the vaults of the National Museum of American History and the National Air and Space Museum in search of earth-shattering firsts. From a new collection of vintage planes to the very first videogame (hint: it wasn’t Pong), Tom discovers what it takes to claim the title of Number One.
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LIFE AFTER DEATH
Tom goes behind the scenes to discover surprising ways to overcome the grave at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of Natural History and the National Postal Museum. Deep inside the vaults, the evidence for life after death has never been more convincing.
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RANDOM?
This episode takes Tom to the very heart of the world’s largest museum complex amidst more than 136 million objects. With such an incredible variety of things to see, any single artifact could seem out of place, but there's nothing random about the systematic collections at the Smithsonian. Tom visits the National Zoo and the National Museum of American History, showing us that breadth certainly doesn’t equal randomness.
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