Stories from the Vaults

2007 • Smithsonian Channel
4.3
13 reviews
TV-PG
Rating
Eligible
Watch in a web browser or on supported devices Learn More

Season 1 episodes (7)

1 Famous Donors
9/3/07
Season-only
Host Tom Cavanagh tries to unravel the idea of "Home Sweet Home." He visits the National Air and Space Museum's collection of space suits, learns about Native American tipis at the National Museum of the American Indian, and finds an astonishing array of life in a thimble of sand.
2 Superlatives
9/10/07
Season-only
Tom is on a mission: to discover what it means to be the best, the tiniest, the coldest, and the most misunderstood. He explores the art of taxidermy at the National Museum of Natural History, the music of a three-hundred-year-old Stradivarius at the National Museum of American History, and unique technology that scrunches the Bible onto one tiny microchip.
3 No Place Like Home
9/17/07
Season-only
Host Tom Cavanagh tries to unravel the idea of "Home Sweet Home." He visits the National Air and Space Museum's collection of space suits, learns about Native American tipis at the National Museum of the American Indian, and finds an astonishing array of life in a thimble of sand.
4 Beauty
9/24/07
Season-only
Host Tom Cavanagh 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. Beauty isn't just in the eye of the beholder.
5 Firsts
11/5/07
Season-only
Host Tom Cavanagh enters 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.
6 Life After Death
11/12/07
Season-only
Host Tom Cavanagh explores evidence of life after death. The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of Natural History, and the National Postal Museum all hold clues to the afterlife deep inside their vaults.
7 Random
11/19/07
Season-only
Host Tom Cavanagh dives into 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 haphazard 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.

About this show

Ever wonder what's hiding behind the scenes of America's most renowned museum complex? Find out as host Tom Cavanagh ("Ed") takes you on an entertaining insider's tour of the private rooms, high-tech vaults, and cutting edge labs of the Smithsonian Institution, revealing some of the amazing artifacts and rarely seen treasures that visitors can't see. Follow along as Tom uncovers the history of each object-its origins, how it's being preserved and studied, and what it might tell us.

Ratings and reviews

4.3
13 reviews
Jake Sharp
June 2, 2015
You may just now be seeing these rare and exciting secrets, but Tom has already seen them for centuries.
Did you find this helpful?
Starla Dawn “MissKarma LadyLeo” Kilts
September 19, 2018
WANT IT SOO FREAKING BAADD!!!
Did you find this helpful?

Rate this show

Tell us what you think.