They are celebrating their 250th birthday over at the British Museum this year - though in truth, what this venerable institution is commemorating is the death in 1753 of an Irishman. Not just any Irishman, though: to inaugurate a world famous library, natural history museum and museum of antiquities takes someone special.
And that someone special was Sir Hans Sloane - Yes, he whose name is commemorated in Sloane Square and the "Sloane Rangers", and whose other great claim to fame is that he invented milk chocolate. Botanists in Ireland and Britain also remember him as the person who first realised that sea beans - brown nuts which occasionally wash up on our beaches - are the seeds of Caribbean trees, carried across the Atlantic on ocean currents.
Sloane was by profession a physician, and by nature a collector, but he also had the great good fortune to have friends in high places, an international reputation, canny investments and a wealthy wife. His story begins in the small Co Down town of Killyleagh, where he was born in 1660. Sloane's father had settled there when he come to Ireland as Receiver-General of Taxes during the Plantation of Ulster. Killyleagh Castle was then an important administrative centre, with an extensive library and what one source has even described as its own school of philosophy.
The young Hans fell seriously ill in his teens, possibly with tuberculosis and smallpox. As a result he became something of a health fanatic, and resolved to train as a physician. To that end, he studied medicine at London and a number of European universities, before returning to London to practise in 1685.
Sloane quickly established a medical reputation - he would later become personal physician to the king and queen - but first, he was appointed surgeon to England's West Indies fleet, and in 1687 left to spend two years in the Caribbean.
That posting proved important. While there, Sloane studied the islands' natural history and climate, and was bitten by the collecting bug, acquiring specimens of some 800 Caribbean plants, which formed the start of his collection.
He was also introduced to a local cocoa drink, but finding it not quite to his taste, he added milk to make it more palatable. The rest is chocolate history: London apothecaries later sold Sloane's drinking chocolate as a herbal remedy, and Cadburys popularised it as a dessert drink in the 1800s.
Sloane's knowledge of Caribbean plants proved unexpectedly useful on a Scottish beach in 1696, when he spotted some sea beans among the pebbles and recognised them as the seeds of Caribbean trees.
Sea beans were a mystery then: some people said they came from seaweeds, others that they had been cast overboard from ships. Their rarity made them attractive and even potent: one type, which is marked with a cross, was popular with pregnant women as a religious talisman.
Not everyone believed Sloane's Caribbean seed theory at first, but he has since been proved right. The seeds are naturally buoyant, with a thick water-resistant shell, and they can actually survive for years in the sea. Their transatlantic voyage lasts about 14 months, and many are still viable when they arrive here. So if you are lucky enough to find one, you could try planting it.
After his Caribbean sojourn, Hans Sloane settled in London, married a wealthy widow, Mrs Elizabeth Rose, and became friendly with many of the great writers, scientists and composers of his day, among them Newton, Liebnitz, Linnaeus and Handel.
He went on to became president of such prestigious institutions as the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians. He helped to establish the then unorthodox technique of smallpox vaccination when, in 1718, he vaccinated the royal family, and he also advised the Royal Navy on how to prevent scurvy.
As might be expected from the founder of the British Museum, Sloane was an avid collector. Thanks to his investments in Caribbean sugar and quinine, his wife's fortune, and his successful practice, he was able to amass a vast collection of books, manuscripts, gemstones, plant and animal specimens, and antiquities from around the world.
He kept his collection, which included 500,000 books, at his Bloomsbury home, and even employed a full-time curator. The collection became quite an attraction, but trying to maintain your own museum brings with it trials and tribulations: Handel once placed a buttered muffin on a valuable manuscript, incurring the owner's wrath.
Sir Hans Sloane, who died in January 1753, offered his entire collection to the British state in his will, provided it was kept together, and held in London where as many people as possible might see it. These terms were accepted, and 250 years ago, in June 1753, the British Museum came into being.
A number of other collections were purchased at the same time, and fund-raising began (in the form of a public lottery) to build a dedicated premises to house everything. The museum opened to the public for the first time in 1757. The collections have grown significantly since then, thanks to numerous purchases and gifts, not to mention the spoils of war and the plunder of colonies.
The British Museum's birthday celebrations began in January and culminate next month. Although the recent destruction of Baghdad's antiquities is bound to cast a shadow over the party, it is surely a timely commemoration of the Irishman who began it all, 250 years ago.