Q 01/05

The Library of Congress's founding act moved the capital from which city?

A) New York

B) Philadelphia

C) Baltimore

D) Annapolis

Answer · why

B) Philadelphia

Philadelphia. There Congress had leaned on a city library, so the act that sent it to Washington gave it $5,000 to buy books of its own.

Q 02/05

Before Thomas Jefferson's books rebuilt the Library of Congress, which president signed the 1800 act creating it?

A) John Adams

B) James Madison

C) James Monroe

D) George Washington

Answer · why

A) John Adams

John Adams. He signed the act in April 1800, yet the library treats Thomas Jefferson as its principal founder and named a building for Adams only in 1...

Q 03/05

The Library of Congress's first 740 books were ordered in 1800 from booksellers in which city?

A) Paris

B) Edinburgh

C) London

D) Amsterdam

Answer · why

C) London

London. Booksellers Cadell & Davies shipped the 740 volumes and three maps across the Atlantic in hair trunks, and they were shelved in a room of the ...

Q 04/05

Which Founding Father wrote the 1783 report urging Congress to buy a library of its own, a plan it never adopted?

A) John Hancock

B) Alexander Hamilton

C) John Jay

D) James Madison

Answer · why

D) James Madison

James Madison. He compiled the shopping list himself, some 550 titles in about 1,300 volumes, seventeen years before Congress finally voted money for ...

Q 05/05

The Library of Congress lost its original collection when the Capitol burned during which war?

A) The Civil War

B) The War of 1812

C) The Revolutionary War

D) The Mexican–American War

Answer · why

B) The War of 1812

The War of 1812. British troops burned the Capitol in August 1814 with the 3,000-volume library inside, and within weeks Jefferson offered Congress hi...