Pic of the Week: Walt Whitman Birthday Edition
Posted by: Neely Tucker
Photo and short bio of Walt Whitman, marking the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Posted in: By the People, Civil War, Pic of the Week, Poetry, Today in History
Category: Today in History
This Day in History: Deadliest Hurricane Ever Strikes Galveston
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
A little more than a year ago, Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast as a category 4 storm, bringing damaging rain and flooding. Less than a month later, Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico with heavy downpours and sustained winds of 155 miles an hour – only two miles an hour shy of a category 5 …
Posted in: Collections, Maps, Photos, Researcher Stories, Today in History
This Day in History: Wright Brothers Take Flight
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
On a dark and windy morning on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, 114 years ago this Sunday, Orville Wright took flight in a tiny airplane he and his brother Wilbur had painstakingly constructed. The 605-pound craft flew all of 120 feet and remained airborne only 12 seconds. After Orville’s first success, Wilbur set the …
Posted in: Collections, Manuscripts, National Book Festival, Technology, Today in History
This Day in History: James Baldwin
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
This post draws on an essay about Baldwin’s life and achievements by Alan Gevinson of the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. James Baldwin was born 93 years ago today, on August 2, 1924, in New York City. His many novels include his first, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” (1953), considered an American classic. He …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Civil Rights, Today in History
This Day in History: Statue of Liberty
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The Statue of Liberty arrived at its permanent home on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor at 1 p.m. on June 19, 1885, “snugly packed in the hold of the French transport Isère,” according to a New York Times report the following day. Multiple delegations of dignitaries, 20,000 citizens, and “every species of craft known …
Posted in: Collections, Copyright, Film, Photos, Today in History
President for a Day
Posted by: Erin Allen
All eyes turn to Washington this week, as the nation’s 45th president is inaugurated on January 20. However, until the passage of the 20th Amendment in 1933, inauguration day was always March 4 in order to allow enough time after Election Day for officials to gather election returns and for newly elected candidates to travel to …
Posted in: Capitol Hill, Collections, Congress, History, Manuscripts, Today in History, Washington DC
What Time Is It?
Posted by: Erin Allen
With the recent “fall back” of daylight saving time, we had to reset our clocks and maybe our brains to get used to the change. And, if you’re someone that conducts business in different time zones, that adjustment can take additional getting used to. I know I always have trouble remembering how far ahead or behind …
Posted in: Collections, History, Maps, Today in History
Election Day Collection Coverage
Posted by: Erin Allen
Today, American citizens gather en masse to exercise their right to vote for the nation’s next president. This particular election will certainly go down in the history books as an interesting one. However, American presidential election history is full of choice moments. This election year hasn’t been the first to see name-calling and insults. In …
Posted in: Collections, Congress, History, Music, News, Newspapers, Today in History, Washington DC
New Online: Today in History, Hispanic Heritage & Folklife Collections
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is a guest post by William Kellum, manager in the Library’s Web Services Division.) Website Updates Today in History is an online presentation of historic events illustrated by items from the Library’s digital collections. First established in 1997, the site was migrated this month from the American Memory site to a new home …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Congress, Education, Exhibitions, Folksonomies, History, Law Library, LC Web site, Maps, New Online, Today in History