1800 — The U.S Library of Congress was officially founded as U.S. President John Adams approved the $5,000 appropriated to acquire “such books as may be necessary for the use of congress.”. The de facto national library of the United States and the largest library in the world. Its collection was growing at a rate of about two million items per year; it reached more than 170 million items in 2020. The Library of Congress serves members, committees, and staff of the U.S. Congress, other government agencies, libraries throughout the country and the world, and the scholars, researchers, artists, and scientists who use its resources.
1990 — The Hubble Space Telescope is launched into orbit on Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-31). The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble), launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and still operational, is a renowned space telescope. Although not the first, it stands out as one of the largest and most versatile. Renowned for its vital research contributions and public relations benefits for astronomy, the Hubble is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble and is part of NASA’s Great Observatories. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) selects Hubble’s targets and processes the resulting data, while the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) manages the spacecraft.
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