In 1876, the first official World’s Fair in the United States, officially known as the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine (or simply, the Centennial International Exhibition), was held in Philadelphia as part of the country’s 100th anniversary celebrations. To help transport attendees around the 3,000- acre Fairmount Park the West End Passenger Railway Company developed a rail system. However, the Agricultural and Horticultural Halls were not accessible by train and the company sought help from General Roy Stone to design a solution.
Join the Library of Congress Science Section on Thursday, January 29, 2026, at 2 p.m. (Eastern Time), for a virtual conversation with author, science communicator and past Kluge Chair in Science and Society, Ainissa Ramirez, about her new children’s picture book, “Spark: Jim West’s Electrifying Adventures in Creating the Microphone” (Candlewick Press, 2025).
At an early age, Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981) had a passion for silhouettes and fairytales that would lead her to a career in animation. She later became a pioneer in silhouette animation and developed the multiplane technology that enabled the multiplane camera to add dimension to animation.
we published a post about the creation of Monopoly and only touched on Elizabeth J. Magie the creator of the game that became Monopoly. Since then I have found a bit more about her and discovered she had quite an interesting life and deserved her own post.
Along the serene Brandywine River in Delaware, in 1802, Eleuthere Irene du Pont de Nemours founded his powder works and began the legacy of a powerful and wealthy French American family...
African American chemists Alice Ball, Norbert Rillieux, Marie Maynard Daly, and Percy Julius made significant contributions to chemistry and helped shape the world we know today.
