Smithson to Smithsonian
The Smithsonian Institution is celebrating 175 years of the “increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Join us in exploring our history.
In June 1829, an English scientist died in Genoa, Italy, leaving behind a fortune and cryptic instructions that it be used for “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Some two decades later, across an ocean in a country that James Smithson had never visited, that bequest resulted in the creation of the Smithsonian Institution.
Over the course of 175 years, the Smithsonian has grown to encompass 21 museums and nearly a dozen research centers—becoming a global organization exploring history, art, culture, and science.
How a stranger’s legacy became the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex is a story full of surprising twists and turns of fate. Join us to explore how we’ve grown and changed. What can we learn from looking back? How might the stories of our past shed new light on our present?