The first semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest (Eurovision) is taking place today. Eurovision is a popular product of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which is made up of the public broadcasting networks of Europe. Twenty-six countries will compete to win in the grand finale being held on Saturday, May 18, in Tel Aviv, Israel. […]
Our latest rare book video features a recent Law Library of Congress acquisition, President Harry S. Truman’s law school notebook.
As most of you probably know, the Law Library builds its collection from many sources. We receive United States-published titles through copyright deposit; governments at other jurisdictional levels send us material via exchange or transfer arrangements; we purchase foreign titles through the Library’s Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, etc. But, in case you were wondering, […]
The latest installment in our Rare Book Video series features a legal writ handwritten by a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln in 1839.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was created by then Secretary of War John C. Calhoun on this day, March 11, in 1824. After Congress abolished government-run trading houses in 1822 (3 Stat. 679, chap 54 (1822)), Calhoun appointed Thomas L. McKenney as the first commissioner of Indian affairs in 1824, to fill the void […]
Washington, D.C. is a nexus for high achievers, accomplished folks, and never-satisfied attention-seekers. In the wash of history, some of Washington’s brighter lights get lost—especially those whose history gets lost because of intersectionality. Mary Ann Shadd Cary is a prime example; she was a polymath whose unswerving quest for equality made her less popular than […]
Describe your background My first encounter with the Library of Congress (LC) was as a young German legal historian with a fellowship to research the transplantation of European law and government structures into the original American colonies, in particular New Netherlands (New York). My chief adviser and director at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and […]
The third installment of our Rare Book Video series focuses on an item that is included as an entry in our Piracy Trials collection on Law.gov–The Arraignment, tryal, and condemnation of Captain William Kidd, for murther and piracy, upon six several indictments, at the Admiralty-Sessions, held by His Majesty’s commission at the Old-Baily, on Thursday […]
Today, December 6, marks Independence Day in Finland. Although Finland is known as “the land of a thousand lakes,” it is also the most heavily-forested country in Europe. Around 72% of Finland’s land area is covered by forests, whereas 10% of the country is covered by lakes. With 60% of Finnish forests being classified as privately-owned forests, it […]
The Law Library of Congress has digitized a collection of National Transportation Safety Board decisions, orders, and petitions. The years of the decisions span from 1973-1982, with the majority falling between 1977 and 1981. Other decisions can be found on the N.T.S.B.’s Document Management System. The National Transportation Safety Board (N.T.S.B.) conducts independent accident investigations […]