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 964 volumes and nine maps. Twelve years later, the British army invaded the city of Washington and burned the Capitol, including the then 3,000-volume Library of Congress.

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.

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 the major government buildings are still under construction.

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.