Stories from the Vaults

Host Tom Cavanagh explores man's sincerest love of all - love of food. Explore Native American food, the origin of the coffee break, and food's effect on our teeth.

Tom unlocks some of the Smithsonian's most compelling mysteries. Can an artist outsmart the world's top spies? How does a missile filled with mail make a political statement to the world? These questions, and many more, will be answered.

Tom goes natural at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Follow him as he tracks sloths, searches the Panama Canal for clues to the creation of the Panamanian Isthmus, and rises sixteen stories in a construction crane to research bug life atop the rainforest.

Tom taps into the Smithsonian's vaults and labs to gaze into the future...as we envisioned it in the 1930s and as we look forward today. First Tom visits the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum to examine designers' visions of tomorrow via the 1939 World's Fair collection. Then he heads to Panama to talk to scientists helping to preserve the future of the tropical rainforest.

Tom joins the Smithsonian on a mission of "extreme conservation," to protect the best aspects of our world for future generations. See the amazing amount of work that goes into saving animals from the brink of extinction, preserving a provocative work of art or reviving a genre of music.

Join Tom as he goes behind the scenes and under the covers of the Smithsonian to find evidence of romance and yes, sex, within the Institute's family-friendly confines. The topic may not be featured in major museum exhibitions, but the vaults and labs here feature fascinating stories about "the birds and the bees."

Tom takes on the bad guys, and digs up some pretty incriminating evidence from the Smithsonian vaults. Tom's investigation unearths photographic evidence from the Crime of the Century, new details on America's first "Lone Gunman:" John Wilkes Booth, and creepy facts about everyone's favorite natural villain, the snake.