In honor of our nation’s 250th birthday, we are looking back at some of the events that have shaped our history. 

1800s

1852 – Frederick Douglas speaks out against the Fourth of the July

1854 – The First Modern Library Opens in Boston, Massachusetts.

1863 – Combahee River Raid led by Harriet Tubman is the most successful slave rebellion

1869 – The Transcontinental Railroad is completed

1878 – Henrietta Wood wins reparations for slavery

1896 – First American Public Beach opens in Revere, Massachusetts. There were about 45,000 people who celebrated the opening.

1900 – 1960

1920 – 19th Amendment gives women the right to vote

1929 – The Stock Market crashes in October, ushering in the Great Depression

1933 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats begin on the radio

1937 – The Golden Gate Bridge opens in San Francisco

1938 – Benny Goodman brings intergrated Jazz to Carnegie Hall

1941 – Attack on Pearl Harbor makes the United States join the allied troops for WWII

1943 – Vesta Stoudt invents duct tape

1955 – Mamie Till addresses the nation

1955-1956 – The Montegomery Bus Boycott

1956 – Althea Gibson is the first black tennis player to win a grand slam

1960-1999

1961 – President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address to the nation

1963 – Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the Lincoln Memorial

1964 – Fannie Lou Hamer testifies at the DNC

1970 – Kent State Massacre

1971 – Soul Train premieres on television

1974 – President Richard Nixon resigns from the presidency

1980 – Winter Olympics wins the Gold in men’s hockey, beating the Soviet Union

1980 – Who Shot JR episode on Dallas drew acclaim

1981 – MTV airs first music video

1983 – MASH series finale airs on television

1987 – Epi-pen was approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration

1988 – US Government apologizes to Japanese-Americans for the camps during WWII

1990 – The Hubble Telescope launches into space

1999 – Columbine

2000s to the Present

2002 – The Boston Globe releases the Spotlight Edition showing the Abuse Scandal of the Catholic Church

2005 – Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans

2007 – Steve Jobs and Apple reveal the iphone

2008 – President Barack Obama becomes the first Black President of the United States

2021 – Kamala Harris becomes the first woman to become the Vice President

THE MAIN LIBRARY IS CURRENTLY CLOSED FOR RENOVATION. OUR TEMPORARY UPTOWN LOCATION IS LOCATED AT 510 81ST STREET. 

Starting on Monday August 31st, the 81st Street Library will be closed. The NB Recreation and Library as well as The Guttenberg Resource Center will remain open. If you have any questions about picking up items on hold, please call the library at 201-869-4715.