In 1912, Japan sent Washington D.C. 3,000 cherry trees as a gift. Two years ago, it sent 250 more, one for every year of the American experiment. Those trees are in the ground now as part of a long-overdue Tidal Basin renovation that also brought wider walkways and a repaired seawall. They will bloom for the first time this month.

When an innovative museum opens beneath the Lincoln Memorial and the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum expands in the same year, the timing is deliberate. Washington, DC has aligned several of its largest cultural investments with America’s 250th anniversary, framing 2026 as a yearlong civic moment rather than a single ceremonial milestone.