About: The Smithsonian Institution   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : dbkwik.org associated with source dataset(s)

The Smithsonian is an establishment dedicated to learning and knowledge, with a world-renowned collection of objects and manuscripts. The Smithsonian is not like other major museums, established to show off the collections of wealthy patrons or as an exercise in national glory. Instead, it is the legacy of a man who was neither American nor visited the country. James Smithson (1765-1829) stipulated that his fortune was to be used for the "increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men" if his nephew died without leaving an heir. With over pre-inflationary $500,000 in the fund, it took Congress nearly a decade to decide how to spend the money and the Smithsonian "Castle" in Washington was only completed in 1855.

AttributesValues
rdfs:label
  • The Smithsonian Institution
rdfs:comment
  • The Smithsonian is an establishment dedicated to learning and knowledge, with a world-renowned collection of objects and manuscripts. The Smithsonian is not like other major museums, established to show off the collections of wealthy patrons or as an exercise in national glory. Instead, it is the legacy of a man who was neither American nor visited the country. James Smithson (1765-1829) stipulated that his fortune was to be used for the "increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men" if his nephew died without leaving an heir. With over pre-inflationary $500,000 in the fund, it took Congress nearly a decade to decide how to spend the money and the Smithsonian "Castle" in Washington was only completed in 1855.
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:empiretotal...iPageUsesTemplate
abstract
  • The Smithsonian is an establishment dedicated to learning and knowledge, with a world-renowned collection of objects and manuscripts. The Smithsonian is not like other major museums, established to show off the collections of wealthy patrons or as an exercise in national glory. Instead, it is the legacy of a man who was neither American nor visited the country. James Smithson (1765-1829) stipulated that his fortune was to be used for the "increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men" if his nephew died without leaving an heir. With over pre-inflationary $500,000 in the fund, it took Congress nearly a decade to decide how to spend the money and the Smithsonian "Castle" in Washington was only completed in 1855. Since then, the Smithsonian has become one of the world's leading repositories for historical objects and archives, funded by the US government and private donations. It now has 20 different branches, specialising in everything from ethnic art and objects to aerospace exhibits, and helping to manage the Smithsonian is one of the (very few) official duties of the Vice President of the United States.
Alternative Linked Data Views: ODE     Raw Data in: CXML | CSV | RDF ( N-Triples N3/Turtle JSON XML ) | OData ( Atom JSON ) | Microdata ( JSON HTML) | JSON-LD    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3217, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Standard Edition
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2012 OpenLink Software