
The Museum was first housed in a seventeenth-century mansion, Montagu House, in Bloomsbury on the site of today's building. On 15 January 1759 the British Museum opened to the public. With the exception of two World Wars, when parts of the collection were evacuated, it has remained open ever since, gradually increasing its opening hours and moving from an attendance of 5,000 per year to today's 5 million. The first famous antiquities, Sir William Hamilton's collection of Greek vases and other classical objects, were purchased in 1772. These were followed by such high profile acquisitions as the Rosetta Stone and other antiquities from Egypt (1802), the Townley collection of classical sculpture (1805), and the sculptures of the Parthenon, known as the Elgin Marbles (1816). In the 1880s the natural history collections were moved to a new building in South Kensington, which became the Natural History Museum. This departure and the construction of the White Wing (fronting Montague Street) made room for the increasing collections. King Edward VII's Galleries, formally opened in 1914, the Duveen Gallery (1939/62) and the New Wing (1978) provided additional public facilities, offices, display areas and library storage. However, solutions to the lack of space in the Museum still had to be found. This museum was found after a long struggle and it consists of many old architectures and many sculptures and also older statues for the peoples.
In 1973 the library became part of a new organisation, the British Library. The books left Bloomsbury for a new building at St Pancras in 1997. The museum was most famous only on 2003 The Museum celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2003 with the restoration of the King's Library, the Museum's oldest room, and the launch of a new permanent exhibition inside it called Enlightenment: Discovering the world in the eighteenth century. This museum is the wanted and hartiest museum for the london peoples and it was opened daily and the visiting hours and the maintenance of the museum is also gud and it was the tourist spot for the peoples around the world and for the london peoples also.