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Posted by: Margaret Wood
Last Friday, April 19th, marked the first day of the month long 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, an armed uprising against Nazi attempts to transport all the Jews in the ghetto to death and labor camps. By the summer of 1942, the Germans had contained the Jews from Warsaw, Poland and the surrounding areas into the …
Posted in: Law Library
Posted by: Margaret Wood
The following is a guest post by James Martin, senior legal information analyst at the Law Library of Congress. James has previously written on The District of Columbia 1862 Emancipation Law and The Articles of Confederation: The First Constitution of the United States. Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Antonin Scalia died in Texas …
Posted in: In the News, Law Library
Posted by: Margaret Wood
On January 6, 2015 434 representatives and 33 senators will take the following oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, …
Posted in: Congress
Posted by: Margaret Wood
The Constitutions of Clarendon were issued by Henry II in 1164. This document became the bone of contention between Henry II and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was also his former chancellor and friend, Thomas Beckett. The quarrel between these two men eventually led to Thomas’s murder and then elevation to sainthood, as well as …
Posted in: Law Library
Posted by: Margaret Wood
April 2014 marks the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth. As a way of combining a salute to Shakespeare and continuing our fascination with all things Magna Carta, I thought I would take a look at Shakespeare’s play, “King John.” The play is believed to have been written in the 1590s, but it was not …
Posted in: In the News
Posted by: Margaret Wood
The following post is cross posted on the From the Catbird Seat: Poetry & Literature blog. Magna Carta is coming to the Library of Congress in November 2014! This document is regarded as being one of the foundations of representative government and at the same time marked a defeat of the king by his barons. But long before 1215, …
Posted in: In the News, Law Library
Posted by: Margaret Wood
At 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 9, it will once again be time to reset our clocks an hour ahead for daylight saving time (DST). Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub. L. 109-58, daylight saving time was extended by several weeks. Previously, DST ran from the first Sunday in April to the last …
Posted in: Congress, In the News, Law Library
Posted by: Margaret Wood
My sister Sarah recently sent me a book about our hometown of Los Alamos, New Mexico. The book is entitled “Los Alamos and the Pajarito Plateau” and was co-written by the Los Alamos Historical Society. Though I regretted the book did not contain more pictures from the 1970s and 1980s when we were growing up, …
Posted in: Congress
Posted by: Margaret Wood
Several years ago, I came across a reference in the Congressional Globe to some sort of crime which seemed to have been committed by a member of Congress. I was intrigued and being an avid mystery reader, wanted to discover who had done what to whom! The entry which originally caught my eye appeared on …
Posted in: Collections, Congress