The British Museum

The British Museum began its life through a scandalously corrupt public lottery. When the wealthy physician Sir Hans Sloane died in seventeen fifty-three, he left his massive collection of over seventy-one thousand objects to the nation on the condition that Parliament pay his heirs twenty thousand pounds. To raise the necessary funds and build a home for the artifacts, the government authorized a public lottery. Wealthy financiers exploited the rules, buying up thousands of tickets before they were even available to the general public, leading to a massive black market and huge profits for those on the inside. This chaotic event ultimately raised enough money to purchase the original site, a mansion known as Montagu House, establishing the world's first national public museum.