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April 24.
1800. President John Adams establishes the Library of Congress, signing legislation approving the expenditure of $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress." Much of the initial collection was lost in teh War of 1812 when DC was torched by the British. Now the oldest federal cultural institution in the US, it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the most books in the world. Through the United States Copyright Office, the Library of Congress receives a copy of every book, pamphlet, print, and piece of music registered in the US.
The holdings of the Library of Congress include over 32 million catalogued books and other print materials in 470 languages, more than 61 million manuscripts, the largest rare book collection in North America (including a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence), a Gutenberg Bible (only of only four perfect vellum copies known to exist), 1 million issues of worldwide newspapers spanning the last 300 years, over 6,000 comic book titles, and 2.7 million sound recordings. Nearly 22,000 new items arrive at the library each business day, though not all are saved permanently. The Library adds only about half, 10,000 items per day, to its collection. Rejected items are traded to other libraries around the world, donated to schools, federal agencies or other organizations in the US.
The complete collection fills 650 miles of shelves. If digitized as plain text, the collection is estimated to occupy 20 terabytes of data.
Any adult may obtain access to the library, but only members of Congress, the Supreme Court and other high governmental officials may take materials out of the library. The Library also serves as a library of last resort -- all libraries in the US may obtain materials from teh Library if not available elsewhere.
1898. The United States declares war on Spain. This is the Spanish-American War, which results (in the end) in the US obtaining Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, Guam, and temporary control of Cuba in exchange of $20 million. Spain meanwhile continues to shrivel as a power in the world, but has the benefit of shedding an expensive colonial "empire" that it really could no longer afford.
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