Library Of Congress

200th Anniversary Of British Attack On Washington DC During War Of 1812!

Ronald 2 Comments

Today is the 200th Anniversary of the British attack on Washington DC during the War of 1812, one of the three times that our homeland has been directly attacked!

The second was the Japanese attack on the US naval base on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, and the third was the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, leading to the war in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda, and the full development of the War on Terror!

The attack on the nation’s capital led to the burning of the White House and the US Capitol, and the fleeing of Congress to Baltimore, and the saving of the George Washington portrait in the White House by servants of President James Madison. The Library of Congress lost its 3,000 volume collection, and later bought the Thomas Jefferson private collection to replace it.

This was a low moment in the War of 1812, but thankfully, the British left DC after 26 hours, and within months, a truce and peace treaty (Treaty of Ghent) was signed, and the war was over. Also, fortunately, a heavy summer thunderstorm helped to put out the fire in the Capital and the White House, and therefore, less damage was done than might have been otherwise!

The thought that our government center had been attacked was hard to accept, and since the terrorists on September 11 intended to attack the Capitol and/or the White House, and only were stopped by the courageous passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, who brought down a plane in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, that horrible situation was prevented, but the attack on the Pentagon, right over the DC line in Virginia was a strong enough warning of the threats that still existed then, and still do today with the growing danger of ISIL (ISIS)!

President Warren G. Harding Love Letters Revealed After Nearly A Century!

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This author and blogger has taught at the college level now for 42 plus years, and one of his favorite discussions was of the Presidency of Warren G Harding (1921-1923), generally acknowledged as the worst President of the 20th century, and close to the bottom of all Presidents on any ranking, sharing that with James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Franklin Pierce.

Harding is not remembered for very much, but he was the President who appointed former President William Howard Taft to be Chief Justice; pardoned Socialist leader Eugene Debs from prison; had his Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, who had been the Republican Presidential nominee in 1916 against Woodrow Wilson, negotiate the Washington Naval Conference that promoted naval disarmament; established the first federal child welfare program; supported the idea of an eight hour work day; advocated an anti lynching bill to protect African Americans; and created the Bureau of the Budget.

He also had the greatest popular vote victory for a first term President in American history, and the percentage of the vote was only later surpassed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon after already residing in the White House!

Despite these accomplishments, Harding is best remembered for the scandals of his administration in the Justice Department, the Interior Department, and the Veterans Bureau (all of these generally known as the Teapot Dome scandals); and also, even more notably his sexual liaisons in and out of the White House years, most notably with Nan Britton, with whom he had an illegitimate daughter; and with Carrie Phillips, who he shared love letters discovered in the 1960s, but banned from revelation and publication at that time to avoid embarrassment.

Well, now those love letters, originally held by the Ohio Historical Society, are opened to scholars and journalists, and are the most extensive set of love letters ever discovered about any President! Much of it is x rated, and a bit shocking to many, as he describes his private parts as “Jerry”, and is extremely descriptive in his sexual language.

So one of the stories I told my students, that they would have to wait decades to learn about in detail, is open and available, revealed this week at the Library of Congress!

It will bring more attention to the 29th President, but is unlikely to raise him from the basement of rankings of Presidents of the United States!

Celebration Of Knowledge: The 214th Anniversary Of The Library Of Congress In Washington, DC!

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This weekend, the nation commemorates the 214th anniversary of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the national library of the United States!

Anyone who has done scholarly research, as this author has, or anyone who has read any book published in the US or worldwide that has been available in the United States, owes a lot to the Library of Congress, as it catalogues all books, prints, photographs, manuscripts, periodicals, newspapers, and every other kind of venue for knowledge that exists!

Spending many months in the Manuscript Division, as this author did in the early 1970s for his dissertation/ book which was published in 1981, made one fall in love with the institution, and realize how fortunate this nation is for this institution, and its three magnificent buildings in the nation’s capitol, along with research facilities and repositories all over the country.

In league with the National Archives and the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress gives the nation and the world unprecedented access to the “hospital of the mind,” the knowledge that expands human aspirations and activity, and makes the world a better place!

April A Particularly Historic Month In America’s Past

Ronald 4 Comments

The month of April is a particularly historic month in America’s past in so many ways, with 20 significant events listed below.

April 2, 1917—President Woodrow Wilson asks the Congress for a declaration of war against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Turks.

April 4, 1968—The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

April 6, 1917—Congress votes for entrance into World War I against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Turks.

April 9, 1865—General Robert E. Lee surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, marking the official end of the Civil War.

April 12, 1861—The Civil War begins, with the South Carolina attack on the federal military fort, Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

April 12, 1945—President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia, and Harry Truman becomes President.

April 13, 1743—President Thomas Jefferson is born in Virginia.

April 14, 1865—President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, dying the next morning at 722 AM

April 17, 1961—A failed attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro failed, coming to be known as the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and helped to lead to the later Cuban Missile Crisis, the greatest challenge faced by President John F. Kennedy.

April 18, 1775—The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, inspiring the first armed uprising against British oppression, occurred.

April 18, 1906—The highly destructive San Francisco Earthquake occurred, destroying much of the city, and killing 4,000 people.

April 19, 1775—The American Revolution began, with the Battle of Lexington and Concord outside Boston, Massachusetts.

April 19, 1993—The Waco, Texas tragedy of the death of 82 people in the Branch Davidian religious compound, consumed by fire, after an intervention by armored vehicles and federal agents occurred, inspiring conspiracy theories which led to the event below.

April 19, 1995—The worst domestic terrorist act in American history occurred, when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, killing 168 people and wounding about a thousand others.

April 20, 1914—The Ludlow Massacre of miners by company hired National Guardsmen, killing 19 people, occurred in Colorado over a desire for recognition of the United Mine Workers for the coal miners.

April 20, 1999—The Columbine Massacre in Littleton, Colorado, led to the worst mass shooting of students and teachers in public schools until the recent Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut.

April 21, 1836— The Battle of San Jacinto near Houston, Texas, led to the victory of Texans led by Sam Houston over the Mexican army of General Santa Anna, leading to Texas Independence.

April 22, 1994—President Richard Nixon dies at the age of 81.

April 24, 1800—The national library of America, the Library of Congress, is established in Washington, DC.

April 30, 1789—George Washington is inaugurated as the first American President at Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan.

In Times Of Disillusionment About Government, Something To Be Proud Of!

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In this time, when disillusionment about our national government is at its peak, it is nice to stop and reflect about something government does that we can all be proud of!

One might ask: What can that possibly be? The answer is today is the 211th anniversary of the creation of the Library of Congress, our national library in Washington, DC, which holds our most significant national treasures, along with the Smithsonian Institution and the National Archives!

Approved under John Adams for its first appropriation, the Thomas Jefferson personal library became the basis of much of the early library holdings.

Despite two major fires in the War of 1812 by the British and in the 1850s by pure coincidence, the library continued to grow, and is considered the largest library in the world, as well as the national library of the United States, containing the manuscript collections of most of the Presidents through Calvin Coolidge, as well as thousands of other famous Americans in all fields of endeavor.

Additionally, more than 17 million books are contained within the Library, which has three major buildings, and includes all published monographs in the nation, as well as many from overseas, with all published books having a Library of Congress number.

Also, there are millions of maps, photographs, audio and video recordings, prints, and drawings within the various departments of the Library of Congress, and the Congressional Research Service does heavy duty work for all members of the legislative branch.

Some of the best days of the author’s life were spent years ago doing research in the Library of Congress, spending many months researching for eight hours a day for the book he published, with the hours going by very quickly, often forgetting lunch, being fascinated by the documents and manuscripts one was holding in his own hand!

The quest for knowledge goes on, and it is the best part of what American government does, and as one thinks about the problems and crises of the past, it gives one hope that somehow we will deal with the future as we coped with the past!

In any case, knowledge is power, and one must NEVER forget that!