The British Library

After laundry yesterday, I walked over to the British Library. It's only a 5 minute walk away and even though I only had an hour or so before they closed, I figured I would check it out. Wow!!! I didn't realize what was all there. First, two of the four remaining originals of the Magna Carta are housed here. For those who can't remember back to high school history class, the Magna Carta was the first charter that was 'thrust' upon a king limiting his power. There are a number of reasons the barons wanted the king's power limited, but one of the most important was due to the property rights. As England was a feudal system, the king owned all the land which he would divulge to governors or dukes or whomever else. The rights of the people who actually lived upon  the land, whom had the right to possession, were constantly being infringed upon, hence the creation of the limits on the king. *That's in a nutshell.*  

This is a picture of the center of the library. It is a three or four story glass room that houses books and is only accessible by staff. The glass goes around all four sides of the room and books line every inch of the glass. Second, the library is home to two Bible codicies, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus.

The Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament.

The Codex Alexandinus it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Thirdly, the British Library is home to Leonardo da Vinci's notebook. It is one of several notebooks put together from loose papers after Leonardo’s death. Fourth, the British Library has Lewis Carroll's original manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground. Fifth, the library also has a number of original writings of Beatles songs. Many of which that were written on scratch paper by John Lennon or Paul McCartney. *I'm not a big Beatles fan but it was still pretty cool.* There is a number of other things worth seeing, but as I mentioned, I was low on time. I will be making a trip back to see what else I can find. Until next time...