Aamused in Austin, TX

REMEMBER all those things you studied in history class?

The Donner Party? The Gold Rush?

The Bancroft Library has them.

And not in a metaphorical sense, either. The library literally owns little pieces of those historical moments you studied in grade school.

The nugget that sparked the Gold Rush? The Bancroft has that.

The only diary kept by a member of the Donner Party? Got that, too.

A personal letter from President Thomas Jefferson to his friend and physician Benjamin Rush: Oh, and by the way, doc, you may be interested to know Congress just approved this plan to explore west of the Mississippi, and I think this fellow named Meriwether Lewis should lead it? Yup. It's in the Bancroft.

It is seriously cool stuff most people will never get a chance to see in real life, but for the next several months, it is all on display at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum.

Bancroft Library officials have selected more than 350 of the library's rarest and most historic holdings for an exhibit celebrating the library's 100th year.