April 24 · This Day in America
On April 24, 1800, President John Adams signs into law an act moving the seat of government to a swamp called Washington — and tucked inside it, almost an afterthought, is $5,000 for "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress." That sentence creates the Library of Congress. The first 740 volumes arrive from London and sit in the unfinished Capitol. In 1814 British troops burn it to ash. Thomas Jefferson, old and deep in debt at Monticello, offers Congress his entire personal library — about 6,487 books, the finest in America, ranging across every subject he could imagine a legislator ever needing. From that scorched, rebuilt seed grows the largest library on Earth. A republic decided, before it owned a single road, that it would own books.
Source: www.history.com
Also on this day · 1990
On April 24, 1990, Space Shuttle Discovery launches on mission STS-31 carrying the Hubble Space Telescope, an eye placed above the blur of our own air. Its mirror was flawed at first; astronauts flew up in 1993 and fixed it in space, by hand. For decades afterward Hubble sent home images of galaxies older than the Sun — and reminded a whole planet how small and astonishing it is to be able to look at all.
Source: science.nasa.gov
“I cannot live without books.”Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1815