The dedication of the National World War II Memorial marks the beginning of "America Celebrates the Greatest Generation," the Capital Region's largest cultural tourism initiative to date. More than 90 museums, cultural attractions, performance venues, hotels and restaurants will pack the summer with more than 140 World War II-themed exhibitions, performances, walking tours, restaurant offers, and hotel packages.

Thanks to the latest public arts program from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, pandas are popping up all over the nation's capital. Following in the hoof-steps of the popular Party Animals program, where colorful donkeys and elephants decorated the District, Pandamania has broken out. One hundred-fifty panda sculptures painted by local, regional and national artists will be on display on street corners and public places throughout the city. www.pandamaniadc.org.

The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art host spectacular exhibitions this summer that highlight Islamic art and tradition from some of the world's leading collections. At the Sackler Gallery, Caliphs and Kings: The Art and Influence of Islamic Spain brings to Washington for the first time approximately 90 objects from the collection of the Hispanic Society of America in New York.

On July 18, the National Gallery of Art will welcome more than 100 works from the renowned Islamic art collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Victoria and Albert Museum highlights beautiful calligraphic writing from the 10th-18th centuries, art made for the secular life of the ruling elite, and art created for religious establishments, including a 20-foot hight pulpit made for a mosque in Cairo in the 15th century.

Coming this fall, the Smithsonian Institution will open its latest museum on the National Mall, the National Museum of the American Indian. The museum celebrates its grand opening on Tuesday, September 21, culminating a 15-year period of planning and collaboration with tribal communities throughout the hemisphere. With its Native-designed architecture, exhibitions and landscaping, the museum will be a one-of-a-kind cultural institution dedicated to the cultures, histories, languages and artifacts of the American Indians.

The September 21 grand opening ceremony launches a six-day special event, the First Americans Festival, featuring free performances by more than 300 singers, dancers, and storytellers, and artisans, representing 30 to 40 native communities from throughout the Americas.

The five-story, 250,000-square-foot museum will open with five major inaugural exhibitions featuring approximately 7,000 objects, exploring such topics as tribal philosophies, history, contemporary cultural issues, and artifacts. Because of the expected crowds and space constraints, timed free passes will be needed for the museum.

There's a new way to tour Washington, DC's famous monuments and memorials. Through a partnership with Bike the Sites and ScootAround, Inc., visitors can ride along the National Mall and Tidal Basin on comfortable, state-of-the-art electronic scooters. Making their debut in time for the dedication of the National World War II Memorial and the summer-long tribute to the Greatest Generation, City Scooter Tours are designed to make the Mall more accessible to visitors of all ages and physical ability levels.

The National Museum of American History will reveal its renovated Military History Hall on Veterans Day 2004 with a new permanent exhibition, The Price of Freedom. The 18,200 square-foot display will survey the history of the U.S. military from the colonial era to the present, using more than 700 artifacts to explore ways that wars have shaped American history.

The new exhibition will anchor the museum's renovated Military History Hall and will include 10 sections with major exhibitions on the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, Afghanistan and Iraq. To anchor the Vietnam War installation, the museum recently acquired a Huey helicopter that was shot down in 1967 and donated by the Texas Air Command Museum.

Highlights of the collection will include George Washington's commission as first Commander in Chief, a regimental flag of Civil War black troops, Colin Powell's uniform, and a military robot. http://americanhistory.si.edu.