That the Poinsettia is named after a former Congressman from South Carolina?
That’s just one of the many interesting pieces of trivia that I encountered in The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America’s Greatest Museum: The Smithsonian by Nina Burleigh. It was a fascinating read, not just for the trivia (James’s father rebuilt the castle at Alwick that is used in some of the Harry Potter films — the one where Camille lost her magic wand) but also for the history of the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
