Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda

1991  • The Mongolian Academy of Sciences invites the Museum to take part in a joint paleontological expedition to the Gobi, the first such expedition to include Western scientists since the Central Asiatic Expedition in the 1920s. These joint expeditions now take place annually (1998 Expedition.)
• A five-story-high Barosaurus cast is installed in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda, becoming the world’s highest freestanding dinosaur display.

1992  • The Research Library’s new facility opens.

1993  • Ellen V. Futter becomes President of the Museum.
• The Center for Biodiversity and Conservation is established.
• The Hall of Human Biology and Evolution opens on the first floor.

Allosaurus (Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs)

1994–1996  • Major renovations are completed on the fossil halls on the fourth floor of the Museum. Openings during this period include: the Hall of Primitive Mammals, the Paul and Irma Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals, the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs, the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs, the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Orientation Center and the Hall of Vertebrate Origins.

January 5, 1997  • The original Hayden Planetarium closes and construction of the Frederick Phineas & Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space begins.

1997  • The National Center for Science Literacy, Education and Technology is created, in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

	Hall of Biodiversity

1998  • The Hall of Biodiversity opens on the first floor.

June 1999  • The David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, on the first floor, is the first component of the Rose Center to open.

August 1999  • The customized one-of-a-kind Zeiss Star Projector (Mark IX)—the most advanced in the world—is installed in the new Hayden Planetarium.

November 1999  • The C. V. Starr Natural Science Building opens.

Rose Center for Earth and Space

February 19, 2000  • The Frederick Phineas & Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space opens to the public.

September 2000  • The Arthur Ross Terrace opens, adjacent to the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

February 2001  • The Judy and Josh Weston Pavilion opens, adding an entrance to the Museum on Columbus Avenue.

June 2001  • The Discovery Room opens on the first floor.

June 2002  • The Museum opens the renovated Samuel J. and Ethel LeFrak Theater. The Museum’s main auditorium, restored to its late 19th–century design by Josiah Cleaveland Cady, is a venue for scientific lectures, meetings, public programs, and large-format films.

Milstein Hall of Ocean Life

May 2003  • The Museum opens the restored and renovated Milstein Hall of Ocean Life featuring high-definition video projections, interactive computer stations, hands-on models, 14 renovated classic dioramas, and eight new ocean ecosystem displays. The centerpiece of the Hall remains the 94-foot model of a blue whale, now resculpted and repainted to more accurately reflect the look of blue whales at sea.

September 2003  • The Museum opens the reconceptualized and renovated Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites. New exhibits, rare Moon and Mars rocks, and over 130 scientifically significant meteorites tell the story of the origins of the solar system.

June 2004  • The Museum installs a new Earthquake Monitoring Station in the Hall of Planet Earth. The seismograph records and illustrates real-time seismic data for the public via a global network of seismic stations accessible in real-time to the Museum and other similar institutions.

October 2, 2005  • 70th Anniversary of the opening of the original Hayden Planetarium.

December 17, 2006  • The Museum hosts the premiere of the new movie A Night at the Museum, based on the AMNH and starring Ben Stiller, Mickey Rooney, and Dick Van Dyke. Afterward, the Museum inaugurates AMNH Sleepovers for families and groups with children ages 8 to 12, which offers the unique opportunity to experience the Museum as never before.

Spitzer Hall of Human Origins

February 10, 2007  • The Museum opens the new Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, offering the most comprehensive evidence of human evolution ever assembled. This new hall explores the most profound mysteries of humankind: who we are, where we came from, and what is in store for the future of our species.

March 31, 2007  •  The renovated and restored Audubon Gallery, a classic, high-ceilinged salon space on the Museum's fourth floor next to the fossil halls, opens its doors to the public for the first time in decades. This grand space, restored to its original elegance, will be dedicated to exhibitions that exemplify the view that art and science are prisms through which we examine the beauty of the natural world and endeavor to understand our place within it.