Welcome to the Smithsonian Museum. Stand at the center of the National Mall and you are surrounded by 175 years of American curiosity made concrete. It is a ring of 21 museums, galleries, and the National Zoo that together steward roughly 155 million objects and specimens—more than any institution on Earth. Yet the Smithsonian is far more than “America’s attic.” It is a living, expanding city of ideas where rockets, ruby slippers, T. rex jaws, tribal beadwork, hip‑hop artifacts and portraits of presidents all share the same interpretive oxygen. The moment you enter one building, your sense of scale shifts; when you step outside again, the slender Washington Monument frames a new horizon of possibilities. Origins…