When the elephant keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo hear the sound of a harmonica, it’s not the radio they’ve left on. Instead, it’s the Zoo’s 36-year-old Asian elephant, Shanthi, who, unsolicited, has a propensity for coming up with her own ditties using whatever instruments the keepers have provided. These include harmonicas, horns and other noisemakers. The Zoo has captured some of Shanthi’s most recent capriccios on this video…

Shanthi is the mother of the Zoo’s 10-year-old calf, Kandula. Asian elephants are endangered in the wild, where 30,000 to 50,000 Asian elephants still live in the forests of south and southeast Asia.

via Viral Viral Videos.

Space Shuttle Discovery, atop its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, NASA 905, is shown from various vantage points around the National Capital region on April 17 on the final leg of its ferry flight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

A bittersweet flight — but what an amazing view! This video was shot by the T-38 Chase Aircraft that was following the shuttle. You can see the National Mall in Washington DC at 40s and again at 7m25s. You can also see what Discovery’s last flight and landing looked like from the ground, from CBS News.

Previously: Riding the Boosters of the Space Shuttle.

Discovered by a Washington, D.C., lawyer in search of antique furniture, this is truly a Cabinet of Wonders, for inside is the 1700-specimen personal collection of 19th Century British naturalist, field biologist and contemporary of Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace. 

From the Washington Post:

There are butterflies and beetles, moths and shells. There’s a small bird. Flies. Bees. Praying mantises. Tarantulas. Seedpods. A hornet’s nest… “I think it’s a fabulous thing,” said David Grimaldi, curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “I think it’s a national treasure, actually.”

via Science Dump.

Fourth graders from Watkins Elementary School recite a portion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s pivotal “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 2010, from the Washington Post.

Here is video of the original address, delivered in person to over 200,000 people, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C. The historic section recited by the fourth graders starts at about 12m10s. For your reference, there is also a transcript (pdf) on pbs.org.