The Smithsonian announced today that it successfully concluded its comprehensive campaign, raising $1.88 billion against its goal of $1.5 billion. It is the largest amount ever raised in a fundraising campaign by a cultural organization.

The Freer|Sackler – the Smithsonian's museums of Asian art – reopened in October 2017 with fanfare, following at two-year renovation. A weekend-long celebration, IlluminAsia: A Festival of Asian Art, Food and Cultures, brought the first-ever Asian night market to the National Mall, along with an extraordinary nighttime video projection on the façade of the Freer Gallery (pictured).

What better way to inspire curiosity and learning than dinosaurs, fossils and ancient times? Opening in 2019, the David H. Koch Hall of Fossils — Deep Time at the National Museum of Natural History will tell the story of T. rex, vanished ecoystems and the latest science of life on Earth, using the fossil record as a guide.