A diamond of that enormity – 112 karats – had to have a first name. And a fabled history: it was discovered by Jean Baptiste Tavernier, a French merchant-traveller, while on visit to India, and sold to King Louis XIV of France. Louis’ court jeweler gave the diamond a proper cut and embedded it in a huge pendant that the king wore on official events. It disappeared with the looting of the palace during the French Revolution, reappeared again twenty years later with an English merchant, was acquired by George IV of England, sold and resold, and finally made its way across the pond and into the hands of Harry Winston, Inc.

On this day, November 10, in 1958, after numerous worldwide tours and private showings of the illustrious diamond, Harry Winston, Inc. donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian, where it still remains today.

The diamond got its name from the generations of the Hope family that held control of it for over a century. The last Hope to possess the diamond attempted to sell it in order to pay off mounting debts resulting from his profligate lifestyle, and fought long and hard in the courts to be allowed to do so. He finally sold the jewel to its most famous American owner, the socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean. Her jeweler? None other than Pierre Cartier.