Transit of Venus March
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The "Transit of Venus March" is a march scored for military brass band written by John Philip Sousa in 1883 to celebrate the 1882 Transit of Venus and published by the J.W. Pepper Company. The work wa
Sheet music cover (1896)
John Philip Sousa, the composer of the march.
The statue of Joseph Henry, the unveiling of which was Sousa's reason for writing the march.
The 1882 transit, which inspired Sousa to write the march.
Joseph Henry
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Joseph Henry was an American physicist and inventor who served as the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the secretary for the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a pr
Transit of Venus March
…One year after the 1882 Transit of Venus, Sousa was commissioned to compose a processional for the unveiling of a bronze statue of American physicist Joseph Henry, who had died in 1878. Henry, who had developed the first electric motor, was also the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington…
Henry, c. 1865–1878
Historical marker in Academy Park in Albany commemorating Henry's work with electricity
A portrait of Henry dated 1879
Henry's letter at the beginning of the 1876 annual report of Smithsonian Institution, showing the operations, expenditures, and condition of the institution that year