James Smithson, an English chemist and mineralogist…

James Smithson, an English chemist and mineralogist who dies in Genoa in 1829, had left his fortune to his nephew, son of his half-brother, but had stipulated that if that nephew dies without children (legitimate or illegitimate), the money should go "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men".

Smithson had never been to the United States, and the motive for the specific bequest is unknown.