Steve Martin roller-skates through the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in a scene from L.A. Story (1991)
There are approximately 17,500 museums in the U.S.
There are more than 1,300 museums in the state of California.
American museums average approximately 865 million visits per year. That’s more than the number of those who attend professional baseball, basketball and football games combined.
The first publicly owned museum in Europe was the British Museum in London, which was founded in 1753 and opened free to the public in 1759.
The first specialized art museum was the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, established in 1764.
The Louvre in Paris, France was established in 1793, soon after the French Revolution turned the royal treasures into public property.
There are other museums devoted to motion picture arts and sciences. Among them are: the Berlin Film Museum (www.filmmuseum-berlin.de), the National Cinema Museum in Turin, Italy (www.museonazionaledelcinema.org), and the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, New York (www.movingimage.us).
