Thomas D. Nicholson; Directed Natural History Museum

Thomas D. Nicholson, 68, whose career as a TV weatherman, astronomer and author was capped by 20 years as director of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Nicholson was in charge of the world’s largest natural history museum until 1989, when he retired. Under his tenure, visitation increased, the museum’s endowment fund grew and educational programs expanded. Nicholson joined the museum in 1954 as an associate astronomer in the museum’s Hayden Planetarium. He was named museum director in 1970. From 1964 until 1972, he broadcast the weather and special events for WNBC radio and television. He won an Emmy award for his contribution to the 1970 television program “Solar Eclipse: Darkness at Noon.” In New York City on Tuesday of cancer.