Washington was founded after the Revolutionary War (1776-1783). The site was chosen by George Washington in 1790, just 20 miles away from his Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon. Just as the city was beginning to find its feet it was sacked by the British in 1812; they torched most of the public buildings and left the city dispirited for decades.
The USA’s capital teems with iconic monuments, vast museums, and the sense that many struggles of power and freedom have been fought in its buildings and streets.
Every September, the sights and sounds of the Civil War echo across the fields of Greene County, VA as history buffs re-enact the Battles of Stanardsville and Rio Hill.
The Capitol building itself is the centre of the centre; it literally sits on the four corners of the four quadrants that make up DC, atop of Capitol Hill. For two centuries it’s been a powerful symbol of America’s pride in its democratic values; in 1812 Thomas Jefferson hailed it as “the first temple dedicated to the sovereignty of the people, embellishing with Athenian taste the course of a nation looking far beyond the range of Athenian destinies”.
They say that nobody’s really from Washington DC and everyone’s there for a reason. It’s known as the capital of the democratic world to many but has also been called the murder capital of the US as well as the world capital of espionage.
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