The Museum holds a vast collection of images, paintings, textiles, boats, and other artifacts that represent various cultures from around the world. I decided to take a deep dive into our Collection to highlight a few artifacts that represent Asian and Pacific Islanders’ history and culture.

The year 2022 marks the 110th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic on April 15, 1912, and it is also the 25th anniversary of James Cameron’s movie by the same name. I would like to pay my respect by highlighting a few Titanic-related artifacts that the Museum has in its Collection.

Multiculturalism incorporates ideas, beliefs, and people from many different countries and cultural backgrounds. This theme is built around our mission: we connect people to the world’s waters, because through our waters – through our shared maritime heritage – we are connected to one another.

Tomorrow marks the 156th anniversary of Juneteenth, the oldest commemoration marking the end of slavery in the United States of America. Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved person himself, even referred to it as the second Independence Day. Also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day, the word “Juneteenth” is an amalgamation of “June” and the “19th.”. Let’s turn back the hands of time for a moment and look at what happened 156 years ago.

It has been 109 years since the R.M.S. Titanic, at one point, deemed the “unsinkable ship,” struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 2,205 passengers and crew members aboard, only 704 souls survived that fateful night. Passengers came to travel aboard the ship from all over the world, including approximately 300 from America. The Widener family was among this group of Americans.

What’s History Bites, you ask? It is a fabulous food event that has served as the finishing touch of the Museum’s annual Commemoration of the Battle of Hampton Roads for the past 10 years!

The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all enslaved African Americans but it was a start in that direction. It would be another two years before the war ended and with it, the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which abolished the institution of slavery in the United States forever.