DC is the Capital. That big white dome is the Capitol.
The Capitol's location was decided by Pierre L'Enfant in his layout of DC because it was on a hill, Jenkins Hill, now known as Capitol Hill, or the reason I have to take the long way home because I can't physically bike up Constitution Ave.
And who works in the Capitol? Or... is suppose to be working? Congress. Our two houses, House of Representatives on the South side and Senate on the Left side. If either wing has a flag flying, that house is in session. The flag in the middle is always flying. We are a very patriotic country.
There are 540 rooms in the Capitol, but yet Congress requires at least three large office buildings for each house. But we don't want congress men to have to walk across the street do we? NO! So there are tunnels. But we don't want congressmen to have to walk... at all, do we? NO! So those tunnels have trams! Lazy.
The large building we have today is not the original building. The Capitol was started in 1793 and went through a whole mess of trouble before it was completed. Design problems and scandals, collapses and uneven floors. It was partially burnt in 1814 by the British. And it was too small. It take off the two wings and the dome, that's the original building. You can actually see where the stone changes color a bit to mark the spot.
It was in the 1850s that we added the two wings. In 1863 the new dome was completed. Abraham Lincoln continued construction on the dome despite the Civil War in show that the union was still going strong.
The Dome itself has 36 columns around it's base for the 36 states during it's completion and above that 13 columns for the 13 original colonies. There is a small turret at the very top that houses a lantern. If either house is working past dark, normal business hours, they turn the lantern on... I guess to show us that they are working still? I work past dark all the time and I don't want any extra acknowledgment but they are a needy bunch.
The very top of the dome holds a great statue. The Statue of Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace. She is 19.5 tall and is the tallest statue of a person by law in the district. She is faces East so that we can say the sun never sets on the face of freedom. She is also missing something. Something you normally find on statues.... pigeon poop. The Capitol Dome has electric wires that shoot out pulses to keep birds from landing there. So the sun never sets on the face of Freedom and birds never poop on the head of freedom.
The original design was for her to be wearing a liberty cap (think Smurf hat) that was a representative of freedom - freed slaves, revolutionaries, etc. But Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War at the time. As the future President of the CSA, not a big fan of freed slaves? So he vetoes that and we get this odd feather headdress to represent our native pasts. You know the people we murdered and gave small pox infested blankets too and stole their land to build our buildings... yeah, but at least we honored them by repeating their headfashions on top of those buildings.
And in an ironic twist of American history - the Statue of Freedom was forged by... a slave.
The Capitol's location was decided by Pierre L'Enfant in his layout of DC because it was on a hill, Jenkins Hill, now known as Capitol Hill, or the reason I have to take the long way home because I can't physically bike up Constitution Ave.
And who works in the Capitol? Or... is suppose to be working? Congress. Our two houses, House of Representatives on the South side and Senate on the Left side. If either wing has a flag flying, that house is in session. The flag in the middle is always flying. We are a very patriotic country.
There are 540 rooms in the Capitol, but yet Congress requires at least three large office buildings for each house. But we don't want congress men to have to walk across the street do we? NO! So there are tunnels. But we don't want congressmen to have to walk... at all, do we? NO! So those tunnels have trams! Lazy.
The large building we have today is not the original building. The Capitol was started in 1793 and went through a whole mess of trouble before it was completed. Design problems and scandals, collapses and uneven floors. It was partially burnt in 1814 by the British. And it was too small. It take off the two wings and the dome, that's the original building. You can actually see where the stone changes color a bit to mark the spot.
It was in the 1850s that we added the two wings. In 1863 the new dome was completed. Abraham Lincoln continued construction on the dome despite the Civil War in show that the union was still going strong.
The Dome itself has 36 columns around it's base for the 36 states during it's completion and above that 13 columns for the 13 original colonies. There is a small turret at the very top that houses a lantern. If either house is working past dark, normal business hours, they turn the lantern on... I guess to show us that they are working still? I work past dark all the time and I don't want any extra acknowledgment but they are a needy bunch.
The very top of the dome holds a great statue. The Statue of Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace. She is 19.5 tall and is the tallest statue of a person by law in the district. She is faces East so that we can say the sun never sets on the face of freedom. She is also missing something. Something you normally find on statues.... pigeon poop. The Capitol Dome has electric wires that shoot out pulses to keep birds from landing there. So the sun never sets on the face of Freedom and birds never poop on the head of freedom.
The original design was for her to be wearing a liberty cap (think Smurf hat) that was a representative of freedom - freed slaves, revolutionaries, etc. But Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War at the time. As the future President of the CSA, not a big fan of freed slaves? So he vetoes that and we get this odd feather headdress to represent our native pasts. You know the people we murdered and gave small pox infested blankets too and stole their land to build our buildings... yeah, but at least we honored them by repeating their headfashions on top of those buildings.
And in an ironic twist of American history - the Statue of Freedom was forged by... a slave.
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