Historical Documents

Brooker began collecting in 1959 in Paris and has been assembling his library ever since.

Trove of Rare Renaissance Books Could Fetch $25 Million at Auction

T. Kimball Brooker has amassed a collection of more than 1,300 texts from the 16th century

U.S. authorities have returned a rare copy of a letter by Christopher Columbus, which vanished from Venice decades ago.

Stolen in the 1980s, a Rare Christopher Columbus Letter Returns to Italy

The document is among several missing copies of the letter to be recovered from the U.S. in recent years

A free exhibition in Washington, D.C., shows 12 pages from the multi-volume collection of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks called the Codex Atlanticus.

Leonardo da Vinci Sketches Go on Display in the U.S. for the First Time

Pages of the "Codex Atlanticus" provide a rare glimpse into the Renaissance icon's imagination and scientific prowess

In the Heege manuscript, an English tutor may have copied the text of a medieval minstrel’s repertoire book.

Medieval Manuscript Reveals 15th-Century Comedy Routine

Written to be performed live, a medieval minstrel's jokes poked fun at the powerful

A diver takes a rubbing of John Greer’s gravestone underwater at Dry Tortugas National Park.

Quarantine Hospital and Cemetery Found Underwater Off the Coast of Florida

Before it was submerged, a small island was home to 19th-century yellow fever patients

Of the roughly 750 First Folios printed, at least 235 known copies survive today.

Without the First Folio, Half of Shakespeare's Plays Would Have Been Lost to History

The 400-year-old text presented the Bard's plays as serious literature, muddling the boundaries between popular culture and high art

One of the scrolls carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius

You Could Win $1 Million by Deciphering These Ancient Roman Scrolls

The Herculaneum scrolls have remained unreadable since their discovery in 1750, but researchers hope to change that

The Codex Sassoon, which measures 12 by 14 inches, dates to the late ninth or early tenth century.

World's Oldest Near-Complete Hebrew Bible Goes to Auction

The Codex Sassoon could break auction records, becoming the most valuable historical document ever sold

Historian John Rice Irwin, linguist Carl Croneberg and historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall

Three Pioneering Scholars Who Died This Year

They believed that the stories of marginalized communities were worth chronicling

President John F. Kennedy delivers remarks at Rice University regarding the nation's efforts in space exploration on September 12, 1962

National Archives Releases Thousands of Kennedy Assassination Files

Over 97 percent of documents related to the event are now publicly available

Sotheby's will auction the first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution on December 13.

A Group of Crypto Investors Is Trying to Buy the Constitution—Again

For the second year in a row, a DAO is vying to bid on a rare first-edition copy

Beethoven’s handwritten manuscript for the fourth movement of his String Quartet in B-flat Major

Nazi-Looted Beethoven Manuscript Returned to Original Owners

The Czech Republic's Moravian Museum gave the document to the heirs of the Petschek family

Researchers made the find while studying the MS Selden Supra 30, a version of the New Testament’s Acts of the Apostles written in Latin.

Woman’s Name and Doodles Found Hidden in 1,200-Year-Old Religious Manuscript

The name may point to an abbess who lived in Kent at a time when few women could read or write

The entrance to the CIA Museum in Langley, Virginia

See Inside the Rarely Seen and Newly Reimagined CIA Museum

Off-limits to all but a few in-person visitors, the museum is starting to welcome the public, online at least

Scientists are testing this 15th-century letter for chemical traces of its author, Vlad Dracula, Transylvanian ruler and inspiration for the fictional count.

Document Detectives Use Smudges and Bloodstains to Investigate the Past

Proteins left behind on historic artifacts are revealing centuries-old secrets

A different page from the Beauvais Missal, a manuscript created in the late 13th century

Man Pays $75 for Medieval Text That Could Be Worth $10,000

He spotted the page from the 13th-century Beauvais Missal at an estate sale in Maine

None

The Remarkable Effort to Locate America's Lost Patents

An 1836 blaze destroyed thousands of records that catalogued the young nation's ingenuity, but recent discoveries indicate that originals may still exist

None

How One Historian Located Liberia’s Elusive Founding Document

The piece of paper went missing for nearly 200 years, leaving some scholars to question whether it even existed

Medieval manuscripts featuring stories about King Arthur and Camelot

How Much Medieval Literature Has Been Lost Over the Centuries?

A new analysis suggests that just 9 percent of manuscripts produced in Europe during the Middle Ages survive today

The Bonhams sale features more than 1,000 books from the late Supreme Court justice's personal library.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Personal Library Is Up for Auction

The late Supreme Court justice's collection includes novels, law books, notes and other documents dating back to her youth

Page 1 of 7