When researching the history of legislation, it is important to be able to quickly translate a Congress number into a date range, and vice versa. This is true because:

• Many publications are assigned numbers by Congressional session. For example, the first public law passed by the 108th Congress is Pub.L. 108-1.
• Some print volumes are grouped by Congress number. Example: the Congressional Record.
• Many print indexes and electronic databases are searchable by Congress number.

Throughout the remaining sections of this tutorial the bottom link in the navigation section at the left takes you to a chart of Congressional Session Dates.