Mysteries at the Museum: Shrunken Heads and Broken Arrow

Shrunken Heads and Broken Arrow

Don examines what appears to be a miniature human head, brought back from the jungles of South America. And he surveys the dented casing of the hydrogen bomb that sat at the center of a horrifying nuclear accident.

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Activity

Carnegie Museum of Natural History

In the vaults of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh is a battered journal. It records the harrowing details of a disastrous expedition to the Arctic.

4400 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Activity

The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History

On display here is a ten-foot long metal capsule. It’s the dented remains of one of the deadliest weapons of the Cold War: a hydrogen bomb, much more powerful than those that laid waste to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

601 Eubank Boulevard Southeast Albuquerque, NM 87123

Activity

Seattle's Museum of History and Industry

On display here is a primitive microphone from an early radio set. During Prohibition-era Seattle, one of the city’s most legendary bootleggers, Roy Olmstead, used this radio to broadcast a children’s show from his home.

2700 24th Avenue East, Seattle, WA 98112-2099

Activity

Chicago History Museum

The rusty cowbell on display is a reminder of one of the city’s worst disasters: the Great Chicago Fire, that left three hundred people dead and eighteen thousand buildings burned to the ground.

1601 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60614

Activity

Mutter Museum

At the Mutter Museum there is a hideous totem: a miniature human head, the size of a clenched fist. Nineteenth-century explorers brought back “shrunken heads” like these from the jungles of South America.

19 South 22nd Street Philadelphia, PA

Activity

Commonwealth Museum

One of the most haunting relics here is actually a man’s tweed cap. It was found at the scene of a brutal double murder that resulted in two Italian immigrants being sentenced to die.

220 William T. Morrissey Blvd. Boston, MA 02125

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