What is Natural History Museum?
[[File:Natural History Museum London Jan 2006.jpg|right|thumb|300px|The Natural History Museum<br/>The [[architect]] was [[Alfred Waterhouse]]]] [[File:Natural History Museum hall.jpg|right|thumb|250px|The main hall]] The '''Natural History Museum''' (NHM) is a [[museum]] in [[London]]. It is the largest [[natural history]] museum in [[Britain]]. It includes the nation's main collections of specimens of life, [[Rock (geology)|rocks]] and [[mineral]]s. The museum employs scientific staff, conducts [[research]], stores specimens, and manages the public galleries. The NHM is one of the four large institutions on Exhibition Road in South [[Kensington]], [[London]]. The others are the [[Science Museum]], the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]] and [[Imperial College London]]. == History == The NHM was at first a department of the famous [[British Museum]]. When the present NHM building was opened in 1881, it was then called the ''British Museum (Natural History)'' or BMNH. Its head reported to the Director of the British Museum. Not until 1963 did the NHM become fully independent, with its own Board of Trustees, and not until 1992 was it permitted to use its present name.<ref>Gunther, Albert 1981. ''The founders of science at the British Museum, 1753-1900''. Halesworth, London.</ref><ref>Barber, L. 1980. ''The heyday of natural history 1820-1870''. Cape, London: Chapter 'Omnium gatherum'</ref><ref>Gunther, Albert 1975. ''A century of zoology at the British Museum''. London.</ref> In 1986, the museum absorbed the adjacent '''Geological Museum''' of the [[British Geological Survey]], which is to just to the north of the NHM. The museum's galleries were completely rebuilt and relaunched in 1996 as ''The Earth Galleries'', with the exhibitions in the Waterhouse building retitled ''The Life Galleries''. The Natural History Museum's own [[Mineralogy]] displays remain largely unchanged as an example of the 19th-century display techniques of the [[Alfred Waterhouse|Waterhouse]] building. The newly developed ''Darwin Centre''