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On the evening of January 13, 1888, a small group of geographers, explorers, teachers, lawyers and cartographers traveled by foot, horseback and horse-drawn carriages through the snow-covered streets of Washington to the Cosmos Club on Lafayette Square just across from the White House. They met around a large mahogany table in order to create a society for the increase and disbursement of geographical knowledge.
It was an era of discovery, invention and change. People from all over were energetic, ambitious, optimistic and curious for new information about the world around them. It was clear to this group that a vehicle was needed to satisfy everyone’s desire for this knowledge.
Their first president was philanthropist Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who helped promote the experiments of many including his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell. He himself was not a scientific man, but like many of today’s readers, he loved the idea that people all over the world could find out about the world in which we live.
Every month since then the National Geographic Society has published the ever-recognizable gold-bordered journal that has allowed generations of readers around the globe to reach out and see the magnificent world around them.
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