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  • First woman on the board of trustees: 1930 (Mrs. Verner Z. Reed)

  • The duck-billed Edmontosaurus (pictured to the right) was the first dinosaur placed on display at the Museum (1936).

  • Aaron Copeland appeared in Phipps Auditorium in 1943.

  • From DMNH: The First 90 Years: "At the end of World War II, Denver struggled to return to normal. With help from the Museum, the City revived its traditional Christmas lighting display at Civic Center. Albert C. Rogers, chief preparator of mammals, modelled and cast six full-sized reindeer to pull Santa Claus' sleigh."

  • Annual Museum attendance passed the 1,000,000 mark for the first time in 1946. (This despite the fact that a polio epidemic in late August resulted in children being barred from public gatherings.)

  • From the 1951 Annual Report: While the new west wing (and entrance) was being built in 1951, visitors had to enter the Museum "through windows in the south wing and down ramps to the exhibition floors"

  • The first planetarium show in the Museum was given to trustees and invited guests on December 22, 1955.

  • Dr. Louis B. Leakey visited the Museum twice in 1966.

  • First evening adult education class (other than Planetarium function): 1966.

  • In January 1967, two Museum productions were shown on national television as part of the Westinghouse Adventure Series, "Mission: Campbell Island" and "Galapagos: The Lost World". Museum Director Alfred M. Bailey narrated the two half-hour shows.

  • In 1975, ads promoting Museum membership appeared in Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Playboy, Denver Singles Guide, and TV Guide. The tag line: "Just Do What Comes Naturally!"

  • In the mid-1970s, the Planetarium staff produced a program entitled "The Last Question," which was written by Isaac Asimov and narrated by Leonard Nimoy.

  • Each of the three panes of glass in the Moose-Caribou diorama weighs approximately 1,100 pounds.

  • The Museum's 35 millionth visitor came through the door August 13, 1978.

  • To Fly! was the inaugural film shown in Phipps IMAX® Theater on July 1, 1983.

  • The blockbuster exhibition Ramses II required 178 volunteers per day.

  • First camp-ins at the Museum: 1987.

  • The Museum received the El Pomar Foundation's Julie and Spencer Penrose Award as Colorado's outstanding cultural institution of 1991.

  • A Museum-produced IMAX® film debuted in 1993: Yampa: The Untamed River.

  • Two dozen staff and volunteers reassembled a 150-million-year-old Corythosaurus skeleton in the lobby of the Greenwood Village Plaza Theaters for the 1993 opening of Jurassic Park.

  • Stephen Jay Gould pronounced Prehistoric Journey "the best prehistoric life exhibit in the world" shortly after its opening.

  • Among the many celebrities who have visited the Museum are Robert Redford, President Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Sir Edmund Hillary, Jane Goodall, Don Johnson, David Crosby, John Ritter, Michael Jackson, Tom Brokaw, Charleston Heston, Omar Sharif, John Elway, James Edward Olmos, Mario Andretti, Ansel Adams, Richard Leakey and Clive Cussler.

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