Chile's Museum of National History

There's always time for pictures of police horses in a public park.
At least the horses were Museum of National History adjacent.

The last time I was in Santiago, I wanted to visit the Museo Histórico Nacional, the Museum of National History. But I could not. All government-operated museums were closed during that trip due to a strike. This meant no Museo Histórico Nacional and no Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the National Museum of Fine Arts.

The Museo Histórico Nacional is on the north side of the Plaza de Armas, just a few blocks west of my hotel. And that meant I walked past the Basilica de la Merced:

At the southeast corner of the Plaza de Armas, the main square in the central touristic district -- I mean, Central Historic District -- was this interesting looking building.

Edificio Comercial Edwards.

And then it was through the Plaza de Armas, with its fountain at the center:

The Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago on the west side of the Plaza de Armas.

The monument to Pedro de Valdivia on the northeast corner, with the STGO letters behind him.

Horses real and statuary in the Plaza de Armas today.

And here is the first destination of today's dose of tourism:

The Museo Histórico Nacional.  Let's have a look inside.

Admission is free. Which means this museum will be worth every penny spent getting inside.

Only a very small number of the displays are dual lingual; Spanish and English. Most are Spanish only, which makes sense in a country that speaks only Spanish.

So I don't know the historic significance of that carriage. I could make up a story, but why? Someone on the internet would know the truth, even if I didn't.

I do know, however, that the gentleman in the painting is Bernardo O'Higgins, the founding father of independent Chile.

This is an historic Chilean flag in the display case. It is so faded that you cannot tell that color on the left (actually, the color on the bottom half of the flag) is bright red, like a regular Chilean flag, and not golden, like a Vatican flag. The blue of the top inside corner is completely faded.

That flag gave its all.

This is a relief map of downtown Santiago from its founding period.

I actually could pick out a few geographic features here and there.

This work needs no explanation.

Which is good, since I would have been unable to provide one even if I wanted.

And this is my favorite picture I snapped inside the museum:

A ship's wheel in the foreground. The background is a painting depicting the sinking of a Peruvian naval vessel. I was unaware of the bitter military history between Peru and Chile prior to this trip. I knew Bolivia and Chile had problems, with Chile having seized the port of Antofagasta and what is now the northernmost segment of the Chilean stick in the late 19th Century, thus forever cutting off Bolivia from sea access. But these ongoing wars between Chile and Peru: that was news to me.

I snapped this picture of this next display in the museum because the dog was so incredibly life-like.

I don't know who the dog was. Or who its owner was. Or whether this is just an excellent recreation or it is taxidermy. But I paused because it looked like a real dog to me.

And that ends the museum tour. Well, there was this:

What it is I don't know. There was a lot left out in the history of Chile as the museum really concentrated on Chile's 19th Century history. Independence from Spain early in that century. War with Peru near the century's end. I'll just throw out two very important names from Chile's 20th Century history who are wholly absent from the museum:  Allende and Pinochet. I guess those two will be featured much prominently in the Museum of Memory and Human Rights about a mile and a half west.

But that's a museum for another day.

Today the Museum of National History was open and it was the museum I toured.