When the Catholic Habsburgs defeated the Protestant Palatine Elector Frederick V in 1620, they reduced Heidelberg Castle to ruins and carried off the contents of the library as spoils of war - by this time totalling over 3, 500 manuscripts and 13, 000 printed works - to the Vatican Library in Rome where they remain to this day.

BBC: A Point of View: Why didn't Harry Potter just use Google?

In a 1995 two-volume anthology of the best of World War II reporting, done by the Library of America, there are twenty-six dispatches from Pyle, one from Hemingway.

CNN: Private Ryan was a hero, but there were bums, too

Stephen Bourne's illustrated talk, "We Also Served", takes place on Sunday 6 October at the Imperial War Museum, London, repeated on 17 October at Peckham Central Library, London.

BBC: Hidden tales of the black home front

During World War II, Lambeth Palace's Great Hall - which housed much of the library's early collection - took a direct hit from an incendiary bomb.

BBC: The curious tale of the stolen books

During the War of 1812, the British burned the Capitol and with it what was then the Library of Congress.

FORBES: A Library Thomas Jefferson Would Love