250 objects for 250 years at the National Museum of American History

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]A new exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History shows the country's 250 years and 250 objects. Visitors will see the museum mainstays like the Star Spangled Banner in the new exhibit in pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, but they'll also see some artifacts never before displayed.

[00:00:20]>> A surfboard that was used by Duke Kahanamoku, who is a native Hawaiian surfer who really popularized surfing to the world. He was a an Olympian, but we have his massive 9-ft surfboard that he shaped in Southern California in 1928.

[00:00:36]>> That is Theo Gonzalves, a curator here at the National Museum of American History. The exhibit, of course, highlights political and military history with Revolutionary War's gunboat Philadelphia, but also pop culture. We have a Nintendo game set. One of my favorites is kind of an interesting object hidden in a kind of boring-looking exterior, which is a a file cabinet that contains over 52,000 jokes written by Phyllis Diller. And Thea Hardigg is the director of the museum and says they had to whittle down the 250 artifacts to define American history.

[00:01:12]>> Like to take 2 million to get down to 250, and the curators did a beautiful job. The whole team did of thinking about what are those objects that help show us in action as a people. Luke Lukert, WTOP News.