Today, you best get out your peg leg, eye patch and practice your “arrrr’s” … it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day! What started as a joke among a handful of friends in 1995 has become a widely recognized fun-for-the-sake-of-fun celebration, thanks in large part to a column written by Dave Barry in 2002. A …
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Today we celebrate …
With the Library of Congress National Book Festival just days away (it’s a week from this weekend, Saturday, Sept. 21 and Sunday, Sept. 22, free of charge on the National Mall) we have a lot to share in addition to more than 100 best-selling authors for readers of all ages. One of the great stops …
(The following is a story written by Lindsey Hobbs of the Library’s Preservation Directorate for the Library of Congress staff newsletter, The Gazette.) Pulp-fiction authors created some of the most enduring characters of any literary genre including Tarzan, detective Sam Spade, and the sword-wielding Zorro. The magazines that illustrated their exploits, unfortunately, haven’t fared as …
(The following is a guest post by Guha Shankar, folklife specialist in the American Folklife Center and the Library’s project director of the Civil Rights History Project, and Kate Stewart, processing archivist in the American Folklife Center, who is principally responsible for organizing and making available collections with Civil Rights content in the division to …
Picture this: The battle of good versus evil set against the backdrop of early 19th century America, where the coming together of two young lovers is threatened by the mistaken belief of an inheritable disease that would afflict their future children. Charlatans who promise quack cures in place of scientific medicine are pitted against the …
“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” – Thomas Edison In August 1795, John Fitch not only demonstrated the first successful steamboat but was also granted a United States patent for his invention. A century later, on Aug. 12, 1877, Thomas Alva Edison is believed to have completed the model for …
(The following is a guest post by Guha Shankar, folklife specialist in the American Folklife Center and the Library’s Project Director of the Civil Rights History Project, a Congressionally mandated documentation initiative that is being carried out in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.) Dr. Martin Luther King’s …
Celebrants observing the 50thanniversary of the March on Washington should not miss special displays of artifacts, treasures and a talk by Congressman John Lewis on Wednesday, Aug. 28, all at the Library of Congress and all free and open to the public. Opening that day is the Library’s photo exhibition, “A Day Like No Other, …