National Mall
Landscaped park in Washington
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2024 | Projected completion year for the comprehensive renovation of the National Air and Space Museum. |
2023 | Welcomed 3.1 million visitors, becoming the fourth-most visited museum in the United States and eleventh-most visited museum globally. |
September 29 2023 | The third global World Culture Festival was hosted on the National Mall, featuring performances from around the world and speeches from global leaders, running from September 29 to October 1. |
October 14 2022 | Western side of the museum featuring eight new galleries, planetarium, museum store, and cafe reopened as part of Phase I of the renovation. |
March 3 2022 | Museum temporarily reopened and operated through March 28, 2022, before closing for a six-month renovation period. |
July 1 2021 | An EF1 tornado formed in Arlington County, Virginia, crossed the Potomac River, and traveled along the National Mall. The tornado damaged trees and twisted temporary fencing installed for the upcoming July 4 Independence Day celebration, dissipating near 16th Street NW and Constitution Avenue at 9:05 p.m. |
2020 | Museum closed along with other Smithsonian museums due to the COVID-19 pandemic. |
2020 | Urban Bird Habitat and Victory Garden were established on the National Mall. |
2018 | Museum received the Schmitt Space Communicator, a device launched on a New Shepard rocket that sent the first tweet from space via an in-flight internet connection. |
2018 | Potential start year for museum renovation work, following NCPC authorization. |
October 2018 | Museum announced a 7-year renovation process and began gradually closing galleries between December 2018 and January 2019. |
September 13 2018 | Lockkeeper's House permanently reopened as an NPS education center. |
August 2018 | Lockkeeper's House reopened temporarily in late August. |
June 12 2018 | Washington Capitals NHL team held a championship rally on the Mall after winning their first Stanley Cup, with tens of thousands of fans in attendance. |
2017 | NPS began implementing the first phase rehabilitation of Constitution Gardens, moving and restoring the Lockkeeper's House. |
2017 | Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump sparked a political controversy regarding crowd size estimation on the National Mall. |
2017 | Common Ground: Our American Garden was created. |
June 12 2017 | NPS and District of Columbia Department of Public Works began enforcing metered parking on approximately 1,100 previously free parking spaces on the National Mall. |
April 2017 | National Park Service (NPS) awarded a contract for installing parking meters on streets and parking areas of the National Mall. |
2016 | NPS completed a four-year restoration of the central Mall axis between 3rd and 14th Streets, replacing deteriorated turf with new grass and soil. |
2016 | Site of the present National Museum of African American History and Culture was established. |
December 8 2016 | The NPS expanded the National Mall Historic District's boundary and listed it on the National Register of Historic Places, with a 232-page registration form detailing the historic district's expanded area. |
July 16 2016 | Thousands of evangelicals gathered for the Together 2016 rally on the National Mall. The event was cut short at 4 p.m. due to excessive heat, with 350 medical calls for heat-related injuries and numerous participants losing consciousness from heat syncope. |
June 2016 | Smithsonian officials projected the museum's total renovation cost at $1 billion, including $676 million for construction, $50 million for new storage space, and $250 million for new exhibits. |
March 2016 | Smithsonian officials reported that the National Air and Space Museum renovation project's cost had risen to $600 million. |
October 1 2015 | NCPC approved preliminary and final site plans for the first phase rehabilitation of Constitution Gardens, including relocation of the Lockkeeper's House. |
July 9 2015 | The Smithsonian planned to submit renovation designs to the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) for review and potential approval. |
June 30 2015 | The Smithsonian began seeking approval for a $365 million renovation to the National Air and Space Museum, hiring Quinn Evans Architects to design improvements to the museum's infrastructure and exhibits. |
November 11 2014 | A Concert for Valor on Veterans Day featured performances by Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Rihanna, Metallica, and others, drawing hundreds of thousands of attendees. |
October 2013 | A two-week federal government shutdown closed the National Mall and its museums and monuments, with an immigration rally and concert permitted during the second week. |
2012 | National Park Service index redefined the National Mall as a landscaped park extending from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, aligned with the original L'Enfant Plan for Washington, D.C. |
May 2 2012 | Winners of the National Mall redesign competition were announced, with Gustafson Guthrie Nichol + Davis Brody Bond winning for Union Square. |
April 22 2012 | Earth Day rally took place on the Mall during a rainy day, with performances by Cheap Trick, Dave Mason, Sting, John Legend, Joss Stone, and others. |
April 9 2012 | Trust for the National Mall announced design ideas from competition finalists for Union Square, Sylvan Theater grounds, and Constitution Gardens lake area. |
March 16 2012 | The first two of five approved Capital Bikeshare stations were opened on the National Mall, shortly before the start of the 2012 National Cherry Blossom Festival. |
2011 | The 112th United States Congress passed the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2012, which transferred the property around Union Square (including the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial and Capitol Reflecting Pool) from the National Park Service to the Architect of the Capitol's jurisdiction. |
September 8 2011 | Trust for the National Mall and NPS announced an open competition for redesigning spaces on the National Mall, with former First Lady Laura Bush as honorary co-chair of the fundraising effort. |
2010 | NPS contractors began reconstructing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which would continue through 2012. |
2010 | National Park Service created a plan that expanded the conceptual boundaries of the National Mall, describing it as the grounds extending from the U.S. Capitol to the Potomac River, and from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial to Constitution Avenue. |
December 2 2010 | National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) unanimously approved the final National Mall Plan at a public hearing. |
November 9 2010 | NPS and Department of the Interior issued a Record of Decision (ROD) completing the National Mall planning process. |
October 23 2010 | The inaugural USA Science and Engineering Festival Expo took place on the National Mall, drawing about 500,000 people with over 1,500 interactive exhibits. |
July 13 2010 | NPS issued a final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the National Mall Plan in the Federal Register. |
April 17 2010 | A week-long series of Earth Day anniversary events occurred, featuring performances by Sting, Mavis Staples, the Roots, and John Legend from April 17 to April 25. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles National Mall & National Air and Space Museum, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.