“America” has a lot of birthdays. There’s that familiar one dating back to July 4, 1776. And we’ve written about one recent 500th birthday for “America.” But today’s “TIH” marks another major milestone for this country. On this date in 1607, the first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown in what […]
So I was preparing my remarks for the Asian/Pacific-American Heritage Month event coming up Monday, and I learned that yesterday?s ?TIH? is the reason APAHM is celebrated in May. (The majority of the laborers who built the transcontinental railroad were Chinese immigrants.) Sometimes I think I?m learning more here than my brain can hold! In […]
Attending poetry readings seems like one of the great fringe benefits of my job, except that occasions such as last evening?s are free and open to the public at large. The Poets Laureate of the United States and the United Kingdom came together in a historic joint reading at the Library of Congress in a […]
I swear, if it were closer to January I would make a New Year?s resolution to do these ?Today in History? posts much earlier in the day, but I guess I?ll just have to start getting to the office even earlier. Blame DC?s worsening traffic. I certainly do. Today?s ?TIH? covers that famous day in […]
For people of a certain age ? for instance, mine ? few performers or artists have defined American music quite so distinctly and significantly as Paul Simon. I remember watching ?Simon and Garfunkel: The Concert in Central Park? on HBO as if it were yesterday, and Paul Simon?s ?Graceland? was one of the first CDs […]
Several folks who read the blog via RSS feeds have been requesting the full text of posts rather than just excerpts. Ask, and it shall be given unto you. You should now receive the full text of all posts if you subscribe to our syndication feed. (By the way, I wrote that headline even though […]
I appreciate all the feedback I have gotten about the blog thus far ? the vast majority of it, thankfully,? positive. One comment that has come across the transom, however: ?Less ?Today in History?!?? Hey, I like history! While I prefer to interpret that as a yearning hunger for even more posts across the breadth […]
I’m overdue in mentioning this, as I had promised several days ago, but in addition to the other annual diversity months, the Library of Congress is joining in the official May observance of Jewish American Heritage Month. A list of our events can be found here. In addition — and I believe this is a […]
Seeing as how we now have a few more readers than, well, zero, I wanted to try my first ?open thread.? This one is topic-specific and might also become another recurring feature, asking a simple question: What are you reading? (Aside from this blog, of course.) It?s a natural question for this blog. After all, […]
I was thinking about doing something slightly different with today?s ?Today in History.? The results had me laughing so hard here at my desk that I was thinking about spinning it off into its own feature. You see, a few weeks ago we launched a new subsite called ?Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers,? in conjunction […]