The principal founder of the Library of Congress was Thomas Jefferson, who believed that a democratic legislative body needed a source of information and scholarship on every subject.
It was established by Congress on April 24, 1800. Originally based in the Capitol in Washington, D.C., it was moved into a separate building in 1897.
The average time the 17th- and 18th-century peasants and laborers spent to pay off the debt incurred by their passage to America (about $100) was four years.
Yes, an airplane has indeed crashed into the Empire State Building. On July 28, 1945, a U.S. Army bomber crashed into the New York landmark, killing 13.
The name of the first slave ship built in the English colonies was the Desire, launched from Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1637. Until then, only European ships transported slaves to the colonies.
A Yavapai from Arizona, Carlos Montezuma (1865-1923) was a physician who became a prominent advocate for Native Americans. In his newsletter Wassaja and elsewhere, he spoke out for Indian rights. He helped to found the Society of American Indians in 1911.
The Native American senator, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, whose term began in 1993, represents Colorado. He is a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe of Montana.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, was the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. Born in 1737, he was 95 years old when he died in 1832.