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Category: History

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Letters Straight to Your Heart: The Library’s Centuries of Correspondence

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Letters in the Library’s stunning collection of correspondence that has helped shape the world as we know it, stretching back more than a thousand years. Written by the famous and the forgotten in any number of languages and dialects from all over the world the letters are on everything from ancient vellum to dime store postcards. It includes letters from Wolfgang Mozart, Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, George Washington and thousands of others. One of the most significant is a papal bull from Pope Alexander VI, giving Spain title to any "new lands" they might discover in the "new world," setting the stage for hundreds of years of colonialism.

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Inauguration Stories: Lincoln’s 1865 “With Malice Toward None” Speech

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, delivered as the Civil War was in its final weeks, was one of most important in American history, featuring the immortal line, "With malice toward none, with charity for all." Michelle Krowl, the Library's Civil War and Reconstruction historian, explains how the day unfolded in this short video.