British Museum

The British Museum opened to the public in 1759, founded by Act of Parliament in 1753 around the collection of physician Sir Hans Sloane, making it the first national public museum anywhere in the world. Robert Smirke's Greek Revival building, completed in 1852, houses the collection behind its famous colonnaded facade, while Norman Foster's Great Court, added in 2000, roofs the central courtyard with a glass-and-steel canopy around the domed former Reading Room. The museum's holdings span two million years of human history and culture, with the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures, Egyptian mummies, and the Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon ship burial treasures among its most visited objects. Galleries are organised broadly by geography and civilisation, allowing thematic and comparative display rather than a single chronological route. The museum's ownership of contested objects, particularly the Parthenon sculptures and Benin Bronzes, remains the subject of ongoing international restitution debate. Conservation work is continuous across the collection, and the Great Court's 2000 renovation remains the most significant structural change to the building since the 19th century.