In 1923, just three years after becoming a museum, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History sent 16 men on an expedition to collect scientific specimens. The Blossom Expedition, named after Elizabeth Bingham Blossom who sponsored the voyage, set out from New London, Connecticut, to explore the islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, including the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa, and Ascension, St. Helena, and Fernando de Noronha off the coast of Brazil. After traveling 20,000 miles in nearly three years, the ship docked in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 1926 with 13,000 specimens that, in the words of the expedition leader, provided evidence to support Darwin's theory of evolution.
