Original subtitles

A prehistoric monster holds the clue to an Ice Age puzzle.

It would go for a neck bite, usually right in like this, and then just close.

Strange iron relics that are the last links to a catastrophic natural

The people on the train didn't stand a chance.

A curious wooden beacon.

The explanation for a 60 -year -old mystery or the key to a cover -up? We're

looking up.

Why can't they be looking down at us?

Across the United States, in the nation's most revered institutions,

our celebrated history is on display.

Wondrous treasures from the past.

Bizarre relics.

But behind every amazing artifact is another tale to be told and a secret

waiting to be revealed.

These are the mysteries at the museum.

Los Angeles, California.

In the heart of one of the city's bustling business districts is a unique

museum.

located on the site of a bizarre natural phenomenon.

This is the Page Museum, and these are the world -famous La Brea Tar Pits.

We're called the La Brea Tar Pits, but there's no tar here.

It's asphalt.

It's crude oil that comes up through cracks in the earth, and as the lighter

material evaporates off, we're left with a black, sticky mess.

A sticky mess that is also an ancient graveyard.

Carefully cataloged in the stacks of the Page Museum are over 4 million ancient

bones that have been recovered from the site.

These primordial relics are the last link to the fantastical creatures that

roamed Southern California and are the source of constant fascination for

paleobiologist Trevor Valley.

I can't lie, this is the coolest job on the planet.

It's like working in a massive jigsaw puzzle.

A puzzle made up of the remains of all kinds of prehistoric animals found right

here.

From Colombian mammoths, creatures that towered over the modern elephant, to

dire wolves, vicious dog -like killers that prowled the prehistoric forest in

huge packs.

But among the jaws, teeth, and claws, one specimen stands out.

The beast that wielded these nine -inch, dagger -like canines was North

America's most ferocious predator.

They can only belong to one of the most disturbingly terrifying animals, a

750 -pound eating machine.

The super predator of the Ice Age, it's Milodon, the saber -toothed cat.

We call them saber -toothed cats for a reason, because Smilodon fatalis is the

fatal knife tooth.

Among the largest, heaviest cats that ever lived, saber -toothed cats ruled

Ice Age food chain.

Though often mistaken as a type of tiger, the saber -toothed was closer in

to the modern -day lion, with one important distinction.

Most carnivores, like lions, only open their mouth about 65 degrees. And right

now you have a problem. The teeth get in the way.

But saber -toothed cats can actually open their jaws 120 degrees.

And it would go for a neck bite, usually right in like this. And then just

close.

The last thing you see is blood ripping off its canines as you die.

Hundreds of these razor -sharp teeth have been excavated from the tar pits.

But one question has intrigued scientists.

How did they all get here?

Why are the remains of so many massive predators located in this particular

site?

The answers lie in the bubbling ooze of the La Brea tar pits.

Southern California, 10 ,000 B .C., the end of the Fourth Ice Age.

Massive glaciers are slowly melting across continental America.

The area we now know as Los Angeles is covered in cool, damp forests and

The climate during the latter half of the Ice Age here was a lot different

it is now. It's got morning breeze coming in, bringing the fog, all of

just big, tall trees mixed with grasslands.

And then up into the mountains, got these massive redwoods.

And roaming wild through this luscious habitat are the biggest mammals the

has ever seen.

With the super predator, the saber -toothed cat, at the top of the food

But in this ancient ecosystem, there is one trap even the saber -toothed cat can

fall prey to.

The La Brea Tar Pits.

An animal walking by may think it's a pool of water or they just don't see it.

They walk right through it. They get stuck.

And the more the trapped animal struggles to free itself, the deeper it

You're trumpeting for help. You're calling the rest of the herd.

But you're immediately a target for any carnivore. And saber -toothed cats will

start coming in going, look, lunch.

It's chaos on an unparalleled scale.

Saber -toothed cats jumping on the back of it. American lions pacing the side.

It's just, it's a zoo gone bad.

But once they enter the oily slime, the predators, too, fall victim to the

sticky clutches of the La Brea Tar Pit.

They would start to get stuck, like a fly -to -fly paper.

It would be a horrible death.

You could take days to die.

And when predator and prey finally succumb to the pits, the oil seeps into

dead creatures' bones, preserving them for millennia.

For every one herbivore we find, we find seven to ten carnivores.

There's so many bones, so many animals, they're all packed in here. And we end

up with a massive collection.

Though these oil -stained relics are remnants of a traumatic struggle between

life and death thousands of years ago, without them, we would never know of the

wondrous ancient creatures that roamed America long before we did.

While the Page Museum and the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California,

secrets from the end of the last Ice Age, across the country in Dayton,

Ohio, the National Museum of the United States Air Force holds an artifact that

played a key role in ushering in the Nuclear Age.

But how did chance play a role in the single act that sealed the fate of

thousands?

The answer coming up on Mysteries at the Museum.

Dayton, Ohio.

The birthplace of aviation.

It was home to the fathers of manned flight, Orville and Wilbur Wright.

In keeping with its high -flying heritage, Dayton is also home to the

Museum of the United States Air Force.

The museum boasts a stunning display of extraordinary aircraft, from President

Kennedy's Air Force One to the SR -71, one of the fastest planes on the planet.

But for the historian Jeff Underwood, one aircraft stands out beyond all

It is the Boeing B -29 Super Fortress Bomber, known as Boxcar.

The B -29 bomber is 99 feet long.

And it has a wingspan of 141 feet. It's a big airplane.

It was the culmination of American military aviation technology in 1944 and

During World War II, the B -29 specialized in high -altitude, long

bombing missions on targets across the Pacific.

It had the range, it had the bomb load, it had the trained crews necessary to

deliver strikeout blows to any enemy anywhere in the world.

But among the hundreds of B -29s that ruled the skies during World War II,

Boxcar stands alone.

In one mission, this aircraft changed the course of world history forever.

This is the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, the act that ended World

War II.

But this apocalyptic event almost never happened.

How did fate and circumstance play a part in the flight that altered history?

August 6, 1945.

World War II has been raging for six years.

In order to bring the conflict to a swift end, the U .S. deploys the single

deadliest weapon ever used.

It dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Tens of thousands of people are killed instantly.

But despite the devastation to one of its most important cities, the Japanese

military command refuses to yield.

The Japanese government operated under the code that they would not surrender.

It was going to take something truly stupendous to force the military leaders

back down.

President Truman decides there is no other option.

The only way to force the Japanese to surrender is to detonate another nuclear

weapon. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's

power to make war.

Codename Fat Man. This device weighs nearly 10 ,000 pounds and is 40 % more

powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima.

The target is a huge military base near the Japanese city of Kokura.

The job of deploying the weapon is given to the B -29 bomber, Boxcar.

But before Boxcar is even airborne, the operation is plagued by setbacks.

The mission ran into problems almost from the very beginning.

A fuel pump breaks down, and the aircraft can only take on just enough

get to the target and back.

Not having this fuel meant the timing had to be perfect. There was no room for

error.

Then, as the bomber gets closer to the target, visibility begins to

As Boxcar approaches Kokura, they see a haze covering the city.

The crew has specific orders. They have to see their target to be able to drop

the bomb on it.

With visibility poor and their fuel running out, the crew must make a

decision.

Abort the mission now or keep flying and drop the bomb on a different target.

But risk running out of fuel.

Determined to complete the mission, the crew head toward a pre -assigned

secondary target, the industrial city of Nagasaki.

They turn toward Nagasaki, looking all the time at the fuel gauges, knowing

they're running out of fuel.

This fateful decision will reshape the history of the world.

But as Boxcar approaches the city, a new problem arises.

Nagasaki is also shrouded in clouds.

With their fuel running out, the crew cannot wait for the conditions to clear.

It appears the mission is over.

But just at the very last moment, the bombardier sees a break in the clouds.

Lady Luck finally throws the dice in his way, and he can see the city.

The moment is right. The time cannot pass.

They cannot wait.

Boxcar drops the bomb.

And they look back and they see the rising mushroom cloud.

They know they've done their job.

Their mission is complete.

When Boxcar touches down, it has just seven gallons of fuel to spare.

Six days later, the Japanese surrender.

The crew of Boxcar brought an end to the Second World War, but at a tremendous

cost.

The city of Nagasaki is annihilated.

The nuclear age has truly dawned, and the world will never be the same again.

Now decades since its fateful flight, Boxcar's engines are silent, its

steel and glass body carefully preserved here in the Museum of the United States

Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

This magnificent aircraft stands not just as an example of aviation

at its best, but more importantly, as a solemn remembrance of the terrible price

of war.

Over 600 miles away at the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown, New York, there

reminder of a very different period in our history.

A relic that harkens back to an ancient time before written history, whose

astonishing discovery would fuel a debate questioning the very origins of

mankind.

Next, on Mysteries at the Museum.

Nestled in the tranquil countryside of upstate New York is the tiny village of

Cooperstown.

This idyllic spot is home to a unique institution that celebrates our nation's

agrarian past, the Cooperstown Farmers Museum.

But among the plows and pitchforks is a strange artifact that seems totally out

of place.

It's about ten and a half feet long.

It's solid stone, you know, throughout.

And it is shaped like a man.

But what is this giant?

And where did it come from?

The tale of this mysterious monolith begins more than a century ago in the

nearby village of Cardiff, New York.

October 16, 1869.

A cattle farmer named Stubb Newell is preparing his land for the winter.

He hires some local men to dig a well in one of his fields.

They were digging for a little while when all of a sudden their shovel struck

solid object.

As they continued to dig around the object, they realized that it was a

Fearing they are about to make a gruesome discovery, the men continue

As the excavation deepens, the limbs of an otherworldly figure slowly come into

view.

Finally, they unearth what appears to be the body of an astonishing creature.

They looked down and beheld what they had uncovered, and very quickly they

realized that they had discovered a giant.

A massive human form, perfectly preserved in solid stone.

It gave the men the sense that they were looking at something very old,

something that had been there for a very long time.

Word of the discovery quickly spreads and soon crowds start to gather at Stubb

Newell's farm to behold the bizarre creature.

Sensing an opportunity to make some money?

Newell erects a tent over the giant and begins charging admission.

Within weeks of the giant's discovery, it had very quickly become a major,

news story.

The press names the remarkable creature after the nearby town of Cardiff, and

the Cardiff giant is born.

But the question on everyone's lips is, what exactly is this thing?

And how did it get here?

Some believe the giant to be a prehistoric sculpture that points to the

existence of an undiscovered American civilization.

Others see the fossilized remains of a real giant.

Some believe that the giant was once a living, breathing being, and at some

point it had died, and through some mysterious act of nature, it had turned

stone.

Either way, the implications are revolutionary.

The very origins of human civilization seem to rest on the identity of the

strange humanoid form.

Americans at that time really measured themselves against their European

counterparts. And all of a sudden, the Cardiff Giant comes upon the scene, and

it implies an epic and a vast prehistory.

And this wondrous possibility, that the birthplace of human civilization may not

have been ancient Egypt or Greece.

but Cardiff, New York.

A continuous stream of paying patrons come to Stubb Newell's tent to see for

themselves.

You get people coming from not just all over New York, there are people coming

from all up and down the East Coast.

The giant is such a lucrative attraction that it even catches the attention of

notorious showman P .T. Barnum, who cashes in on the phenomenon by

his own giant.

Charging admission and claiming that his is the original and Stubb Newell's card

of giant is a fake.

Little did anyone know how prescient P .T. Barnum's claim would turn out to be.

February 10, 1870.

A Chicago newspaper receives a letter from a sculptor who claims he was paid

carve the card of giant.

Could the giant really be a fake?

And if so, who could be behind such an outrageous hoax?

The sculptor points the finger at a cunning New York businessman named

Hull, a close relative of Cardiff farmer Stubb Newell.

Hull was very enamored with his own inventiveness. He really believed that,

know, someday his ingenuity would make him a fortune.

In 1867, two years before the giant is eventually unearthed, Hull concocts a

devious plan.

He hires a sculptor to carve a massive stone man.

Then he and his co -conspirator Stubb Newell bury the giant in secret on

farm.

When the giant is discovered and starts turning a profit, Hull and Newell share

in the takings.

But they are brought down by their own greed.

Holland Newell failed to pay the sculptor who originally carved the

And the sculptor takes his revenge by blowing the plot wide open.

With its mystery solved, interest in the giant quickly wanes.

At this point, it really became little more than just kind of a sideshow

novelty.

But today, the formidable figure is still on display at the Farmers Museum

Cooperstown, New York.

Here it lies as a testament, not to the enigmatic origins of human civilization,

but rather to the imagination and cunning of two con artists who were

by their own avarice.

In 1868, Hull and Newell bury their stone giant in a field in Cardiff, New

Over 50 years later, on the other side of the country, high in the Cascade

Mountains, two very different artifacts would be unearthed in perplexing

circumstances. The story of how they got there remains one of the most poignant

tragedies of the 20th century.

When we return to Mysteries at the Museum.

Seattle, Washington.

Once a sleepy fishing village, today this hub of trade and industry is the

Pacific Northwest's largest city.

And at the Seattle Museum of History and Industry, the artifacts on display

chronicle the rise of this metropolis over the last 150 years.

But off of the main floor of the museum,

Buried within its vast archive is a pair of puzzling objects.

Made of molded iron, these two rusting ornaments from the 1890s are remnants of

a bygone era.

A time of vast expansion westward, new industry, new wealth,

and the catalyst for it all, the Great Northern Railroad.

These are from one of the Pullman cars.

The Pullman cars were kind of the luxury cars on the trains, and they were

fairly well -appointed.

They had nice fixtures.

Believed to be light brackets, these ornate iron decorations would have

the walls of the first -class Pullman cars of the Great Northern's passenger

trains. And these probably had some kind of a porcelain or a glass ball around

them.

In these original state, I would imagine that these were absolutely gorgeous.

But what makes these artifacts so unique are not the intricacy of their design,

but where they were found.

These two objects were discovered by hikers in a wooden ravine nearly 4 ,000

feet up in the Cascade Mountains.

So how did they get there? The story lies in one of the greatest train

in American history.

February 22nd, 1910, Spokane, Washington.

A winter storm is gathering over the Pacific Northwest.

The overnight passenger train, the Seattle Express, and a high -priority

train are en route to Seattle.

In the plush first -class Pullman cars, businessmen and families are resting

comfortably, unfazed by the growing storm.

But all the while, the train is chugging steadily towards the Pacific

Northwest's most perilous obstacle, the Cascade Mountains.

The Cascade Range is a very tall mountain range. Stevens Pass goes

about 4 ,100 feet.

Now drifting with snow and blasted by high winds, the mountains are an almost

impassable obstacle.

But with one train laden with high -priority mail and another carrying

travelers eager to reach Seattle, The trains have to press on.

Two days later, the trains are stopped dead just outside of the Cascade Tunnel

near the tiny railroad town of Wellington.

Heavy snow has buried the tracks.

The trains weren't able to move because they were bottlenecked. There were snow

slides to the east. There were slides to the west. They were just stuck.

Rail crews from Wellington work tirelessly with steam -driven rotary

old -fashioned manual labor to dig out the trains.

But they cannot keep up with the blanketing snow.

They were waging a war against the weather, and they were losing.

It was the worst snowstorm in the recorded history of the Pacific

For the passengers and crew, there was only one option. They must wait out the

storm on the snow -laden mountain.

For nearly a week, the anxious and weary train passengers are held hostage by

the unending blizzard.

Finally, on the evening of February 28th, after six days on the mountain,

is a lull in the storm allowing the passengers to make plans to hike down to

neighboring town the following morning.

Their ordeal appears to finally be over.

That night they had a celebration.

They sat up talking and laughing.

And they went to bed happy because they thought, finally this is going to be

over. But for many of the passengers and crew of the two stranded trains,

morning never comes.

Overnight, a violent lightning storm erupts in the peaks above the track.

A lightning strike took out the snow on the hill above them.

And the snow actually came roaring down the hill.

The stranded trains are sitting in the direct path of a colossal avalanche.

To hear that coming, it would be horrifying.

The snow slide is a mile and a half wide, gathering momentum and dragging

rocks, and debris in its wake.

As soon as that snow let loose on the hillside, the people on the trains

stand a chance.

When the mangled wreckage of the two trains finally settles in a ravine 100

below the scene is of utter devastation.

Of the 125 passengers and crew aboard the two trains only 24 are found

alive.

It is the worst avalanche disaster in terms of human life lost in the history

the United States.

The tragedy prompts officials to build a new tunnel at a lower elevation, and

the tale of the avalanche and the site of the wreckage fades from memory.

Until the 1960s, when hikers stumble upon an eerie scene high in the Cascade

Mountains.

Sprouting from the lush green earth not far from a long abandoned rail tunnel

are rusting remnants of mangled iron.

But amid the wreckage, the hikers spot a pair of objects that look surprisingly

unscathed. They are these two weathered lighting brackets.

The hikers unearth them from their mountain perch and bring them here to

Seattle Museum of History and Industry where they are carefully preserved.

Two ghostly reminders of the lives that were lost.

when a giant of the industrial age succumbed to an even greater power of

In Roswell, New Mexico, a very different set of remains found in a rancher's

field would spark one of the greatest mysteries America has ever known.

Still to come on Mysteries at the Museum.

Roswell, New Mexico, located on Main Street in this dusty desert town, is a

museum dedicated to one of the greatest scientific questions of our times.

Do aliens exist?

Theories abound as to the presence of extraterrestrial life, and the

International UFO Museum and Research Center has numerous displays dealing

many of them.

For museum director Julie Schuster, one exhibit, a lifelike figure enclosed in

glass, is at the center of the debate.

His name is Harold. He is an anthropomorphic dummy.

He is made of metal, wood, and leather.

When you walk up to him, you kind of go, what in the world is this?

And why is he here?

What does this wooden man have to do with UFOs?

The answer lies in the enduring mystery of how Roswell, New Mexico became the

UFO capital of the USA.

And for some, the site is one of the biggest government cover -ups in

July 8, 1947.

A rancher named Mack Brazel is tending fences on a remote part of his land.

We had a major thunderstorm in the area.

Ranch foreman Mack Brazel went out after the storm to check sheep and fences and

make sure everything was where it was supposed to be and came across this huge

area of metal debris that wasn't there before.

The basic description was metal like nobody had seen before.

It was not military. It was not your typical aluminum foil.

He described the strange metal -like material.

He said it couldn't be burned, it couldn't be torn, it maintained its

Also, he described seeing some sort of hieroglyphic -like writing or symbols.

He found it very otherworldly.

Mack reports his find to officials at the local Roswell Air Force Base.

The military immediately dispatches a team to investigate.

When the Air Force went with Mack back out to the ranch, it basically was

cordoned off.

and became a military site.

A few hours later, the Air Force puts out a press release that shocks the

They have captured a flying saucer.

But no sooner does the news hit the wire than the Air Force's top brass,

Lieutenant General Roger M. Ramey, orders a bizarre U -turn.

The same afternoon, Of July 8th, General Ramey issued a press release saying,

no, it was a weather balloon. The people were mistaken.

The change of story, quiet speculation, and the incident is forgotten.

Until more than 30 years later, 1978.

A UFO researcher tracks down an ex -Air Force intelligence officer from Roswell,

Major Jesse Marcel.

In an interview.

Marcel divulges something extraordinary.

Marcel originally claimed that the debris he recovered was most certainly

the remains of a weather balloon, and that a crashed alien spaceship had been

covered up.

I know a story about a crashed weather balloon had been put in its place.

The claim immediately revives interest in the events of July 1947, and a slew

of locals come forward with their own astounding reports of unexplained

phenomena.

Some mention seeing strange glowing lights in the night sky.

One account by an Air Force transport officer on base in Roswell at the time

the incident alleges something amazing.

I'm not sure exactly how much he saw, but he saw there were bodies.

They were small, like four foot tall.

The officer claims to have seen alien bodies transported onto the base.

Over the next 20 years, this testimony evolves into a series of fantastic

theories of alien autopsies, flying saucers, and government cover -ups.

But no one has conclusive proof one way or the other.

Finally, In 1995, pressured by the intense speculation surrounding the 1947

incident, the government responds with an official report.

They admit the debris found by Mack Brazel was not a weather balloon, but

part of a top -secret balloon program intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests

called Project Mogul.

It's certainly understandable why they would keep it so secret.

Obviously, you don't want public knowledge about your capabilities for

in on Soviet nuclear testing. So the argument that Project Mogul would be a

viable explanation to me certainly makes sense.

While Project Mogul did explain the strange silvery objects found by the

rancher, it didn't account for the tales of alien bodies found nearby.

Two years later, in 1997, the government offers a second explanation. As well as

Project Mogul, in the 1940s, the Air Force was also running tests on high

-altitude parachutes, often using full -sized human replicas.

The government claims that what locals saw were not alien life forms, but crash

-test parachute dummies.

Could this six -foot -tall test dummy really have been mistaken by excited

locals for an alien being?

I don't think I'd mistake him for something not of this earth.

Or were dummies like this one, the linchpin in one of the biggest alleged

-ups in history?

We may never know.

But for Julie, not knowing is no reason to stop wondering.

I don't care if you believe or don't believe.

The museum's goal is for you to think outside the box and walk out kind of

going, maybe.

We're looking up.

Why can't they be looking down?

And it's this mere possibility that continues to draw visitors to the

International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico, for the

chance to believe the unbelievable.

Across the country at the Dental Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, is another

object that has long been the source of myth and speculation.

But the real story behind this antique artifact may just change what you know

about America's most famous icon.

Next on Mysteries at the Museum.

Baltimore, Maryland.

One of America's oldest cities and seaports, Baltimore was a stage on which

birth of our country played out.

In fact, in 1776, it briefly served as the new nation's capital.

And at the Smithsonian -affiliated Museum of Dentistry, there is one

more intimately involved in our nation's early history than any other in the

city. It is this lower half.

of a set of 18th century dentures.

But why are they here?

What do these 200 -year -old teeth have to do with American history?

The answer lies with these dentures' illustrious owner, first president and

founding father, George Washington.

Washington was a great American hero. He's a father of our nation.

He was an imposing gentleman. He stood six foot three.

In fact, some have said that he commanded the attention in any crowd.

When most of us think of George Washington, we conjure an image of the

patrician man of few words that we know from portraits and history books.

But was this really Washington?

Was he truly the grim -faced figure his portraits imply?

Or is there another explanation?

The answer may lie in the most unusual place, his teeth.

Washington suffered almost his entire adult life from the rapid loss of his

teeth beginning when he was 22.

And while most of us have heard the popular schoolyard tale of George

Washington's wooden dentures, dentist and museum curator Dr.

Scott Swank can dispel this myth once and for all.

Unequivocally, George Washington's dentures were not made from wood. They

made from ivory.

What most people don't know is that these famous false teeth may be the

why our lasting impression of George Washington is of a stern statesman.

March 4th, 1793, Philadelphia.

President Washington is being sworn in for his second term of office. To the

surprise of everyone present, he goes on to deliver what would become the

shortest inaugural address in the history of the presidency.

His first inaugural address was long, like seven paragraphs.

The second inaugural address was two paragraphs, very short.

And this is a period when men make their names on speeches, standing up for

hours at a time delivering addresses to their constituency. And to have

Washington stand up and make such a terse statement is odd, to say the

Why was this address so brief?

One possibility could be his false teeth.

If you go back and read letters from people that were close to Washington,

sometimes they'll mention that Washington was in a particularly foul

it seems to have been from a tooth that was aching.

But in the late 1700s, before electric drills and Novocaine, Dentists only had

one solution for a toothache.

Primary treatment at that time was, I've got a toothache, this tooth's bothering

me, take it out.

There was very little effort made to save a tooth.

And in Washington's case, this resulted in a tooth removal a year.

By the time he was 40, he was wearing a half plate of dentures.

And by the time he becomes president in 1789, he only has one tooth left.

At this point, President Washington's only choice is to commission a full set

dentures or deliver his speeches toothless.

For their day, these dentures were top of the line. Each tooth is painstakingly

hand -carved in a single piece of ivory, attached to a base, and then fastened

together by a metal spring.

But the 18th century's best dentures were not without complications.

The springs kind of hold them in place, so every time you open your mouth, the

spring wants to push the denture apart.

So it couldn't have been an easy feeling to get used to.

In fact, George Washington would have had to actively bite down on his

to keep them in place.

If he relaxed his jaw, the springs and the false teeth would force his mouth to

pop open.

This is reflected, I think, in some of the portraits that we see, the very

face, the clamped jaw.

It's almost as though he's doing everything possible to keep his dentures

mouth. When he is sworn in a second time in 1793, Washington's ill -fitting

dentures would have made it hard for him to smile, let alone give a lengthy

address, inauguration or not.

Inaugural addresses, speeches, what have you. Washington just didn't want to

spend a lot of time talking at that point.

So what was Washington really like? 200 years later, we can only speculate.

But one thing is certain. Seeing George Washington's dentures at the National

Museum of Dentistry in Baltimore, Maryland, provides visitors with a rare

insight into the life of one of our greatest Americans and brings us one

closer to understanding the man behind the myth.

Aliens and avalanches.

Giants of stone and giants of steel.

Deadly canines and legendary dentures.

These are the mysteries at the museum.