Taiwan’s famous stinky tofu made its debut in Washington’s Smithsonian Museum. The occasion was the result of Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau’s New York Representative Office cooperating with the Smithsonian Museum to hold a Taiwan Night Market. The S. Dillon Ripley Center at the museum was filled with red lanterns, snacks and all the sights and sounds of a Taiwan night market—including stinky tofu.

Before, if you wanted to see — for example — Alexander Hamilton's letters to his wife, you had to travel to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and even then, you'd have to view them on microfilm. Now, Julie Miller, the library's curator of early American manuscripts, says the collection has been digitized. "The web site is meant to open these up to a much broader public," and given the increased interest in Hamilton, the timing is no accident.

Next week U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will host the third annual Our Ocean Conference in Washington, D.C. on September 15-16, as a way to continue the wave global action to protect our ocean from the effects of human activity, including unsustainable and illegal fishing, marine pollution, and climate-related impacts.

Past Forward: Contemporary Art from the Emirates looks to bridge cultural divides by recreating the tapestry of life in the relatively young country situated along the Persian Gulf through more than fifty pieces of artwork.