August 9, 2022 - National Veep Day | National Book Lovers Day

Welcome to August 9th, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate leaders who made a contribution for better or worse. When you vote for a President, the Vice President is part of the package, but originally things were quite different. In our country’s early years, the office went to whomever finished with the second most electoral votes. That was until the election of 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied for second place. The messy outcome led to the passage of the 12th Amendment, which changed the system of voting at the time. Many of our Vice Presidents may have slipped into obscurity but on National Veep Day we celebrate the important office that can strongly affect a presidency. Julius Caesar made many important contributions to Western civilization. But he also set the world of books back by thousands of years. During his siege of Alexandria, he accidentally set fire to the world’s largest library. Another historical figure is at the opposite end of the bibliophile spectrum: Thomas Jefferson. When the United States Library of Congress was burned in 1814, thousands of books were lost, but Thomas Jefferson came to the rescue, providing 6,000 of his own to rebuild the library. And since then, it’s grown to be the largest in the world with more than 38 million volumes, not to mention all the photographs, maps, music, and special collections. On National Book Lovers Day, celebrate your own collection by cracking open a good page turner. I’m Anna Devere and I’m Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices