Watch, Read, Listen

The Huntington recently acquired six pages of diary entries recounting events leading up to, and immediately following, the Battle of Lexington Green. The manuscript was penned by the noted Boston preacher and patriot Samuel Cooper (1725–1783), a friend of Benjamin Franklin.

The pedestrian blue, red, and white of the Brillo boxes are shocking. They catch your eye before you even enter the gallery, signaling that something different is going on in that room—very unlike the soft, golden hues of the 19th- and early 20th-century galleries next door.

In 1438, renowned Italian painter Pisanello decided to adopt an art form that had been ignored since antiquity. He cast a portrait of John VIII Paleologus, emperor of Constantinople, in a bronze disk about four inches in diameter. The work was a commemorative medal honoring the dignitary's visit

On Tuesday, Sotheby's auctioned off a copy of John James Audubon's monumental Birds of America, breaking the record for the highest winning bid for a published book. Aside from the $10.2 million price tag, everything else about the book is big.

Few authors are more synonymous with the holiday season than Charles Dickens, whose classic tale A Christmas Carol was written in 1843. The Huntington's literary collections include about a thousand letters by Dickens

Think of a wild forest. What does a person need to do for an undisturbed wild forest to grow? Well, mostly just stay out of the way. A forest does not need to be fertilized, because the cycle of plant growth and decay provides the nutrients needed to maintain productivity.

Freezing temperatures are a rare occurrence in San Marino, but when they hit they can be devastating to some of the plants in the botanical collections, including many rare cacti and succulents.

Many visitors ask us, "What's the best time of year to see the botanical gardens?" Some people favor spring for the first big display of roses, others prefer summer for the water lilies and lotus blooms.