Library of Congress United States

Legendary

The national library of the United States and the research library for Congress.

In August 1814, British soldiers marched into Washington and set fire to the Capitol. The nation's library was inside, and all 3,000 books burned.

Thomas Jefferson heard the news at his home in Virginia. He'd been collecting books for fifty years and had the largest personal library in the country.

He offered to sell it. Congress bought all 6,487 volumes for $23,950 in January 1815.

Some members objected. Jefferson's collection included books on cooking, wine, philosophy, and architecture, in several languages, and critics said Congress didn't need any of that.

Jefferson disagreed. He said there was no subject a member of Congress might not need to know about.

That idea stuck, and it's the reason the library collects nearly everything today.

The library had started small. On April 24, 1800, President John Adams signed a law moving the government to Washington and setting aside $5,000 for books.

The first order was 740 books and three maps, shipped from London. Everything was kept inside the Capitol building.

For almost a century, that's where the library stayed, crammed into rooms and hallways. By 1881 it had outgrown the space completely.

Congress paid for its first dedicated building, which opened in 1897. It was renamed the Thomas Jefferson Building in 1980.

Today the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. It receives about 15,000 new items every working day.

Its collection holds one of only three complete Gutenberg Bibles on vellum, the largest collection of comic books anywhere, and Jefferson's own surviving books, still shelved in his original order.

Walk into the Great Hall of the Jefferson Building, with its marble staircases and painted ceilings. Look for the Gutenberg Bible in its glass case near the entrance. Reserve a free timed-entry pass in advance, and look down into the Main Reading Room from the overlook above.