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Category: Events

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

Celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday!

Posted by: Brett Zongker

The Library invites you to join "It's Your Story," our ongoing celebration of the nation's 250th birthday this year. It's anchored by a new exhibition called “The Declaration’s Promise,” which opens on July 3, just before the Fourth of July official birthday.

Medium close photo of a man seated, wearing a light purple suit with an open-collared white shirt.

Kwame Anthony Appiah, “The Ethicist,” Will See You Now

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Should your boyfriend save your beloved cat or a drowning stranger? Your stepdad has Alzheimer's and now your mom wants to date. Is this okay? Kwame Anthony Appiah, the author of The Ethicist column for the New York Times Magazine and 2024 winner of the Library’s John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, took on these and other quandries in a fun Live! At the Library event.

Half portrait of Bill Moyers, smiling, turned slightly to the camera, smiling. He's wearing a dark suit, a blue shirt and a red tie.

Bill Moyers: A Lifetime Preserved at the Library of Congress

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Bill Moyers, who died yesterday at the age of 91, was at the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium one night in the fall of 2023 to mark the preservation of more than 1,000 of his public television programs in The American Archive of Public Broadcasting. a collaboration between the Library and GBH, the public media production company in Boston. It was a crowning night to one of the most influential careers in American media.

Medium distance photo of Ada Limon on stage behind a plexiglass podium, smiling broadly.

Ada Limón’s Final Lecture as Poet Laureate: “You have to love.”

Posted by: Maria Peña

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón's final lecture last week in the Coolidge Auditorium was a love letter to poetry to libraries and librarians. Her lecture, titled “Against Breaking: On the Public and Private Power of Poetry,” framed poetry as a shared, not solitary, experience and as a celebration of humanity’s range of voices and perspectives.

Color portrait of Mac Bennett, seated, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees, looking to his left at the camera.

Mac Barnett Named New National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Mac Barnett, the bestselling author of more than 60 children's books, including “Twenty Questions,” “Sam & Dave Dig a Hole,” “A Polar Bear in the Snow” as well as the “Mac B., Kid Spy” series, will be inaugurated today as the 2025-2026 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. 

George Gershwin leans foward onto a table, smiling and wearing suit and tie. Black and white head and shoulders photo.

Gershwin’s “Rhapsody” at 100; Still Capturing the American Character

Posted by: Neely Tucker

George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” a rapturous burst of music that has become a motif of the nation’s creative spirit, turns 100 today. It was first performed in New York on the snowy Tuesday afternoon of Feb. 12, 1924. Commissioned and premiered by the popular conductor Paul Whiteman at a concert designed to showcase high-minded …