This Year in History:
1800
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
President John Adams approves legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress,” thus establishing the Library of Congress. The first books, ordered from London, arrived in 1801 and were stored in the U.S. Capitol, the library’s first home. The first library catalog, dated April 1802, listed […]
On May 15, 1800, President John Adams orders the federal government to pack up and leave Philadelphia and set up shop in the nation’s new capital in Washington, D.C. After Congress adjourned its last meeting in Philadelphia on May 15, Adams told his cabinet to make sure Congress and all federal offices were up and […]
On June 3, 1800, John Adams, the second president of the United States, arrives in Washington, D.C., where he briefly takes up residence in Georgetown and is fêted in advance of being the first American president to move to the burgeoning new capital city. When he arrives, its streets have yet to be paved and […]
On November 1, 1800, President John Adams, in the last year of his only term as president, moved into the newly constructed President’s House, the original name for what is known today as the White House. Adams had been living in temporary digs at Tunnicliffe’s City Hotel near the half-finished Capitol building since June 1800, […]
