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AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY TIMELINE


1869 - 1900 | 1901 - 1960 | 1961-1990 | 1991 > Present


1961  • The Haida Canoe exhibit is installed in the 77th Street entrance area.


1963  • The Hall of North American Small Mammals opens on the first floor.


1964  • The Frank M. Chapman Memorial Hall of North American Birds opens on the third floor.


1965  • The Hall of Eskimos (subsequently closed) opens on the first floor.
• The Hall of Primates opens on the third floor.


CPW Facade  

Central Park West Facade

  

1966  • The Hall of Eastern Woodlands Indians opens on the third floor.


1967  • The Hall of Plains Indians opens on the third floor.
• The Museum’s exterior is designated an official New York City Landmark.


1968  • Gardner D. Stout becomes President of the Museum.
• The Hall of African Peoples opens on the second floor.


1970  • The Hall of Mexico and Central America opens on the second floor.


1971  • Gallery 77, a special-exhibition space on the first floor, is completed.
• The Hall of Pacific Peoples opens on the third floor; reopens as Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples in 1984.


1973  • The Frederick H. Leonhardt People Center opens on the second floor.


1974  • The Louis Calder Laboratory and the Alexander M. White Natural Science Center are completed on the second floor.


1975  • Robert G. Goelet becomes President of the Museum.
• The Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda on the Museum’s second floor is designated an Interior Landmark.


  Margaret Mead
 

Margaret Mead

1976  • The Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals open on the first floor.


1977  • Gallery 3, a special-exhibition space on the third floor, is completed.
• The Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians opens on the third floor.


1980  • The Gardner D. Stout Hall of Asian Peoples opens on the second floor.


1981  • The Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites opens on the first floor.


1982  • The Charles A. Dana Education Wing is completed. The wing includes new areas on the first floor—the Harold F. Linder Theater, the Henry Kaufmann Theater, and the Edith C. Blum Lecture Room—as well as previously existing facilities on the second floor—the Louis Calder Laboratory, the Andrew M. White Natural Science Center, and Frederick H. Leonhardt People Center.


1988  • George D. Langdon, Jr., becomes President of the Museum.


1989  • The Hall of South American Peoples opens on the second floor. The original South American hall opened in 1907 and closed in the 1960s.