Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
Moments in a longer story.
Selected milestones in the history of the American Museum of Natural History.
On this page
From the Arsenal to the Gilder Center
These dates describe the place you can learn about here. They are not a company timeline for Apollonaut.
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1861
An idea
The naturalist Albert S. Bickmore proposes a natural history museum for New York.
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22 May 1871
The museum opens
The museum opens in the Arsenal in Central Park.
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22 December 1877
A first building
The first purpose-built building, by Calvert Vaux and J. Wrey Mould, opens on Manhattan Square.
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1899
The Northwest Coast Hall
Franz Boas establishes the hall, now the museum’s oldest.
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1924
Ocean life
A Hall of Ocean Life opens in the museum’s south-east courtyard.
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1930
The Hall of Asian Mammals
The hall of dioramas from India, Nepal, Burma and Malaysia opens.
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1935
The Hayden Planetarium
The original planetarium opens.
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1936
A new entrance
John Russell Pope’s memorial hall on Central Park West is completed.
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2000
The Rose Center
The Rose Center for Earth and Space is completed.
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4 May 2023
The Gilder Center
The Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation opens.
Follow the stories behind the dates
A timeline is a beginning. The longer history introduces the people and places; the sources below provide further context.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
