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Washington, DC, With the newest President

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Washington, DC, With the newest President

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The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States took place on January 20, 2021, marking the start of the four-year term of Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president. The 59th presidential inauguration took place on the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Biden took the presidential oath of office, before which Harris took the vice presidential oath of office.

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The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States will mark the commencement of the four-year term of Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president. A public ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, January 20, 2021, on the West Front of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The event will be the 59th presidential inauguration. Biden will take the oath of office as president on that day, and Harris will take the oath of office as vice president. Festivities are likely to be limited due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Public health measures to prevent the spread of the virus, such as mandatory face coverings, temperature checks, and social distancing, are likely to be used for the ceremony.

"Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union", a reference to the Preamble to the United States Constitution, will serve as the inaugural theme.

The inauguration will mark the formal culmination of the presidential transition of Joe Biden that began when he won the U.S. presidential election on November 3, 2020, and became the president-elect four days later on November 7, 2020. Incumbent President Donald Trump, who lost to Biden, refused to concede, falsely declared himself the winner, repeatedly promoted false or misleading information, and filed multiple legal challenges disputing the results of the election.

Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, are scheduled to be confirmed by the Electoral College on December 14, 2020. Upon his inauguration, Biden will become the oldest president at 78 years and 61 days, older upon taking office than Ronald Reagan, who left office at 77 years, 349 days. He will also become the first president from Delaware (although being born in Pennsylvania), first former vice president to become president in nonconsecutive terms since Richard Nixon, first, and to date, only president born during World War II, and second Catholic after John F. Kennedy. Harris will become the first woman, first African American, and first Asian American vice president.

It has been speculated that Trump may not attend the ceremony, the fourth time in United States history a departing president would refuse to attend their successor's inauguration, and rather announce a 2024 re-election campaign.

The Capitol Police Board has restricted public access to the West Front of the United States Capitol from September 7, 2020, to February 28, 2021, to "allow for the safe and secure construction of the Inaugural platform, stands, and other infrastructure necessary to support the event." Construction began on September 29, 2020. An inaugural first nail ceremony, which traditionally commemorates the start of construction of the inaugural platform, was not held because it "coincided with the period of remembrance for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg."

Joint Congressional Committee

The swearing-in ceremony and the inaugural luncheon for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris is being planned by the Joint Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, a bipartisan committee composed of United States Senators Roy Blunt (chairman), Mitch McConnell, and Amy Klobuchar, and United States Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Kevin McCarthy. The committee, overseen by the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, chose the inaugural theme "Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union" to highlight the inaugural ceremony as a "hallmark of American governance and democracy" and stress the peaceful transition of power.

Presidential Inaugural Committee

The 2021 Presidential Inaugural Committee will organize several other inauguration‑related events at the direction of the President‑elect and Vice President‑elect of the United States. The committee is led by Tony Allen (chief executive officer), Maju Varghese (executive director), and Yvanna Cancela and Erin Wilson (deputy executive directors). Allen stated that the events will "look different amid the pandemic" but maintain inaugural traditions while engaging Americans in a safe manner.

Security and costs

In September 2020, the District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency estimated that the total costs of the inauguration to the D.C. government-including security, parade preparation, and the construction of review stands outside of the White House and John A. Wilson Building -will exceed US$44.9 million. Typically, the District's costs incurred in connection with the inauguration are reimbursed by the federal government.

Inaugural events

Harris will recite the following oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Biden will recite the following oath, as prescribed by the Constitution:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. [So help me God.]

Protests and demonstrations

Five applications for First Amendment permits are being processed by the National Park Service for demonstrations on Inauguration Day, including those filed by the ANSWER Coalition and by two pro-Trump groups.

References

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The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States will mark the commencement of the four-year term of Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president. A public ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, January 20, 2021, on the West Front of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

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The Washington area was a main target of the September 11, 2001 attacks. American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked by five Islamic terrorists and flew into the Pentagon in Arlington County, just across the Potomac River from Washington, killing 125 people inside the building, as well as 64 onboard the airliner, including the five terrorists. United Airlines Flight 93, which was also hijacked and which went down in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, supposedly intended to target either the White House or the United States Capitol Building.

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The history of Washington, D.C., is tied to its role as the capital of the United States. Originally inhabited by an Algonquian-speaking people known as the Nacotchtank, the site of the District of Columbia along the Potomac River was first selected by President George Washington. The city came under attack during the War of 1812 in an episode known as the Burning of Washington. Upon the government's return to the capital, it had to manage the reconstruction of numerous public buildings, including the White House and the United States Capitol. The McMillan Plan of 1901 helped restore and beautify the downtown core area, including establishing the National Mall, along with numerous monuments and museums.

Unique among cities with a high percentage of African Americans, Washington has had a significant black population since the city's creation. As a result, Washington became both a center of African American culture and a center of the Civil Rights Movement. Since the city government was run by the U.S. federal government, black and white school teachers were paid at an equal scale as workers for the federal government. It was not until the administration of Woodrow Wilson, a Southern Democrat who had numerous Southerners in his cabinet, that federal offices and workplaces were segregated, starting in 1913. This situation persisted for decades: the city was racially segregated in certain facilities until the 1950s.

Today, D.C. is marked by contrasts. Neighborhoods on the eastern periphery of the central city and east of the Anacostia River tend to be disproportionately lower-income. Following World War II, many middle-income whites moved out of the city's central and eastern sections to newer, affordable suburban housing, with commuting eased by highway construction. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, sparked major riots in chiefly African American neighborhoods east of Rock Creek Park. Large sections of the central city remained blighted for decades. By contrast, areas west of the Park, including virtually the entire portion of the District between the Georgetown and Chevy Chase neighborhoods (the latter of which spills into neighboring Chevy Chase, Maryland), contain some of the nation's most affluent and notable neighborhoods. During the early 20th century, the U Street Corridor served as an important center for African American culture in DC. The Washington Metro opened in 1976. A rising economy and gentrification in the late 1990s and early 2000s led to the revitalization of many downtown neighborhoods.

Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution places the District (which is not a state) under the exclusive legislation of Congress. Throughout its history, Washington, D.C. residents have therefore lacked voting representation in Congress. The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961, gave the District three electoral votes, thus, implicitly authorised it to hold an election for president and vice present. The 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act provided the local government more control of affairs, including direct election of the city council and mayor.

Archaeological evidence indicates American Indians settled in the area at least 4,000 years ago, around the Anacostia River. Early European exploration of the region took place early in the 17th century, including explorations by Captain John Smith in 1608. At the time, the Patawomeck (loosely affiliated with the Powhatan) and the Doeg lived on the Virginia side, as well as on Theodore Roosevelt Island, while the Piscataway (also known as Conoy) tribe of Algonquians resided on the Maryland side. Native inhabitants within the present-day District of Columbia included the Nacotchtank, at Anacostia, who were affiliated with the Conoy. Another village was located between Little Falls and Georgetown, and English fur trader Henry Fleet documented a Nacotchtank village called Tohoga on the site of present-day Georgetown.

The first colonial landowners in the present-day District of Columbia were George Thompson and Thomas Gerrard, who were granted the Blue Plains tract in 1662, along with Saint Elizabeth, and other tracts in Anacostia, Capitol Hill, and other areas down to the Potomac River in the following years. Thompson sold his Capitol Hill properties in 1670, including Duddington Manor, to Thomas Notley; The Duddington property was handed down over the generations to Daniel Carroll of Duddington. As European settlers arrived, they clashed with the Native Americans over grazing rights. In 1697, Maryland authorities built a fort within what is now the District of Columbia. In that same year, the Conoy relocated to the west, near what is now The Plains, Virginia, and in 1699 they moved again to Conoy Island near Point of Rocks, Maryland.

Georgetown was established in 1751 when the Maryland legislature purchased sixty acres of land for the town from George Gordon and George Beall at the price of £280, while Alexandria, Virginia was founded in 1749. Situated on the fall line, Georgetown was the farthest point upstream to which oceangoing boats could navigate the Potomac River. The strong flow of the Potomac kept a navigable channel clear year-round; and, the daily tidal lift of the Chesapeake Bay, raised the Potomac's elevation in its lower reach; such that fully laden ocean-going ships could navigate easily, all the way to the Bay. Gordon had constructed a tobacco inspection house along the Potomac in approximately 1745. Warehouses, wharves, and other buildings were added, and the settlement rapidly grew. The Old Stone House, located in Georgetown, was built in 1765 and is the oldest standing building in the District. It did not take long before Georgetown grew into a thriving port, facilitating trade and shipments of tobacco and other goods from colonial Maryland. With the economic and population growth of Georgetown also came the founding of Georgetown University in 1789, at its founding drawing students from as far away as the West Indies.

The United States capital was originally located in Philadelphia, beginning with the First and Second Continental Congress, followed by the Congress of the Confederation upon ratification of the first federal constitution. In June 1783, a mob of angry soldiers converged upon Independence Hall to demand payment for their service during the American Revolutionary War. Congress requested that John Dickinson, the governor of Pennsylvania, call up the militia to defend Congress from attacks by the protesters. In what became known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Dickinson sympathized with the protesters and refused to remove them from Philadelphia. As a result, Congress was forced to flee to Princeton, New Jersey on June 21, 1783. Dickinson's failure to protect the institutions of the national government was discussed at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787[citation needed ]. The delegates, therefore, agreed in Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution to give the Congress the power:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings;

James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 43, also argued that the national capital needed to be distinct from the states, in order to provide for its own maintenance and safety. The Constitution, however, does not select a specific site for the location of the new District. Proposals from the legislatures of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia all offered territory for the national capital location. Northern states preferred a capital located in one of the nation's prominent cities, unsurprisingly, almost all of which were in the north. Conversely, Southern states preferred that the capital be located closer to their agricultural and slave-holding interests. The selection of the area around the Potomac River, which was the boundary between Maryland and Virginia, both slave states, was agreed upon between James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton had a proposal for the new federal government to take over debts accrued by the states during the Revolutionary War. However, by 1790, Southern states had largely repaid their overseas debts. Hamilton's proposal would require Southern states to assume a share of Northern debt. Jefferson and Madison agreed to this proposal and, in return, secured a Southern location for the federal capital.

On December 23, 1788, the Maryland General Assembly passed an act, allowing it to cede land for the federal district. The Virginia General Assembly followed suit on December 3, 1789. The signing of the federal Residence Act on July 16, 1790, mandated that the site for the permanent seat of government, " not exceeding ten miles square" (100 square miles), be located on the "river Potomack, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern-Branch and Connogochegue". The "Eastern-Branch" is known today as the Anacostia River. The Connogocheque ( Conococheague Creek) empties into the Potomac River upstream near Williamsport and Hagerstown, Maryland. The Residence Act limited to the Maryland side of the Potomac River the location of land that commissioners appointed by the President could acquire for federal use.

The Residence Act authorized the President to select the actual location of the site. However, President George Washington wished to include the town of Alexandria, Virginia, within the federal district. To accomplish this, the boundaries of the federal district would need to encompass an area on the Potomac that was downstream of the mouth of the Eastern Branch.

The U.S. Congress amended the Residence Act in 1791 to permit Alexandria's inclusion in the federal district. However, some members of Congress had recognized that Washington, and his family, owned property in and near Alexandria, which was just seven miles (11 km) upstream from Mount Vernon, Washington's home and plantation. The amendment, therefore, contained a provision that prohibited the " erection of the public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the river Potomac".

The final site was just below the fall line on the Potomac, the furthest inland point navigable by boats (see: Atlantic Seaboard fall line). It included the ports of Georgetown and Alexandria. The process of establishing the federal district, however, faced other challenges in the form of strong objections from landowners such as David Burns who owned a large, 650-acre (260 ha) tract of land in the heart of the district. On March 30, 1791, Burns and eighteen other key landowners relented and signed an agreement with Washington, where they would be compensated for any land taken for public use, half of the remaining land would be distributed among the proprietors, and the other half to the public.

Pursuant to the Residence Act, President Washington appointed three commissioners ( Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll, and David Stuart) in 1791 to supervise the planning, design and acquisition of property in the federal district and capital city. In September 1791, using the toponym Columbia and the name of the president, the three commissioners agreed to name the federal district as the Territory of Columbia, and the federal city as the City of Washington.

On March 30, 1791, Washington issued a presidential proclamation that established " Jones's point, the upper cape of Hunting Creek in Virginia" as the starting point for the federal district's boundary survey. The proclamation also described the method by which the survey should determine the district's boundaries. Working under the general supervision of the three commissioners and at the direction of President Washington, Major Andrew Ellicott, assisted by his brothers Benjamin and Joseph Ellicott, Isaac Roberdeau, Isaac Briggs, George Fenwick, and, initially, an African American astronomer, Benjamin Banneker, then proceeded to survey the borders of the Territory of Columbia with Virginia and Maryland during 1791 and 1792.

The survey team enclosed within a square an area containing the full 100 square miles (260 km ²) that the Residence Act had authorized. Each side of the square was 10 miles (16 km) long. The axes between the corners of the square ran north-south and east-west. The center of the square is within the grounds of the Organization of American States headquarters west of the Ellipse.

The survey team placed forty sandstone boundary markers at or near every mile point along the sides of the square (see: Boundary markers of the original District of Columbia). Thirty-six of these markers still remain. The south cornerstone is at Jones Point. The west cornerstone is at the west corner of Arlington County, Virginia. The north cornerstone is south of East-West Highway near Silver Spring, Maryland, west of 16th Street. The east cornerstone is east of the intersection of Southern Avenue and Eastern Avenue.

On January 1, 1793, Andrew Ellicott submitted to the commissioners a report that stated that the boundary survey had been completed and that all of the boundary marker stones had been set in place. Ellicott's report described the marker stones and contained a map that showed the boundaries and topographical features of the Territory of Columbia. The map identified the locations within the Territory of the planned City of Washington and its major streets and the location of each boundary marker stone.

In early 1791, President Washington appointed Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant to devise a plan for the new city in an area of land at the center of the federal territory that lay between the northeast shore of the Potomac River and the northwest shore of the Potomac's Eastern Branch. L'Enfant then designed in his " Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of the United States ... " the city's first layout, a grid centered on the United States Capitol, which would stand at the top of a hill (Jenkins Hill) on a longitude designated as 0,0°. The grid filled an area bounded by the Potomac River, the Eastern Branch (now named the Anacostia River), the base of an escarpment at the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line along which a street (initially Boundary Street, now Florida Avenue) would later travel, and Rock Creek.

North-south, and east-west streets formed the grid. Wider diagonal "grand avenues" later named after the states of the union crossed the grid. Where these "grand avenues" crossed each other, L'Enfant placed open spaces in circles and plazas that were later named after notable Americans.

L'Enfant's broadest "grand avenue" was a 400-foot-wide (122 m) garden-lined esplanade, which he expected to travel for about 1 mile (1.6 km) along an east-west axis in the center of an area that the National Mall now occupies. A narrower avenue ( Pennsylvania Avenue) connected the "Congress house" (the Capitol) with the "President's house" (the White House). In time, Pennsylvania Avenue developed into the capital city's present "grand avenue".

L'Enfant's plan included a system of canals, one of which would travel near the western side of the Capitol at the base of Jenkins Hill. To be filled by the waters of Tiber Creek (also named "Goose Creek") and James Creek, the canal system would traverse the center of the city and would enter both the Potomac River and the Eastern Branch (see: Washington City Canal).

On June 22, L'Enfant presented his first plan for the federal city to President. On August 19, he appended a new map to a letter that he sent to the President.

President Washington retained one of L'Enfant's plans, showed it to Congress, and later gave it to the three Commissioners. The survey map may be one that L'Enfant appended to his August 19 letter to the President.

L'Enfant subsequently entered into a number of conflicts with the three commissioners and others involved in the enterprise. During a contentious period in February 1792, Andrew Ellicott, who had been conducting the original boundary survey of the future District of Columbia (see: Boundary Markers of the Original District of Columbia) and the survey of the federal city under the direction of the Commissioners, informed the Commissioners that L'Enfant had not been able to have the city plan engraved and had refused to provide him with the original plan (of which L'Enfant had prepared several versions).

Ellicott, with the aid of his brother, Benjamin Ellicott, then revised the plan, despite L'Enfant's protests. Ellicott's revisions, which included the straightening of the longer avenues and the removal of Square No. 15 from L'Enfant's original plan, created minor changes to the city's layout.

Ellicott stated in his letters that, although he was refused the original plan, he was familiar with L'Enfant's system and had many notes of the surveys that he had made himself. It is, therefore, possible that Ellicott recreated the plan.

Shortly thereafter, Washington dismissed L'Enfant. Ellicott gave the first version of his own plan to James Thakara and John Vallance of Philadelphia, who engraved, printed, and published it. This version, printed in March 1792, was the first Washington city plan that received wide circulation.

After L'Enfant departed, Ellicott continued the city survey in accordance with his revised plan, several larger and more detailed versions of which were also engraved, published and distributed. As a result, Ellicott's revisions became the basis for the capital city's future development.

In 1800, the seat of government was finally moved to the new city, and on February 27, 1801, the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 placed the District under the jurisdiction of Congress. The act also organized the unincorporated territory within the District into two counties: the County of Washington on the northeast bank of the Potomac and the County of Alexandria on the southwest bank. On May 3, 1802, the City of Washington was granted a municipal government consisting of a mayor appointed by the United States president.

The District of Columbia relied on Congress to support capital improvements and economic development initiatives. However, Congress lacked loyalty to the city's residents and was reluctant to provide support. Congress did provide funding for the Washington City Canal in 1809, after earlier private financing efforts were unsuccessful. Construction began in 1810 and the canal opened in late 1815, connecting the Anacostia River with Tiber Creek.

Construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) began in Georgetown in 1828. Construction westward through Maryland proceeded slowly. The first section, from Georgetown to Seneca, Maryland, opened in 1831. In 1833 an extension was built from Georgetown eastward, connecting to the City Canal. The C&O reached Cumberland, Maryland in 1850, although by that time it was obsolete as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) had arrived in Cumberland in 1842. The canal had financial problems, and plans for further construction to reach the Ohio River were abandoned.

During the War of 1812, British forces conducted an expedition between August 19 and 29, 1814, that took and burned the capital city. On August 24, the British routed an American militia, which had gathered at Bladensburg, Maryland to protect the capital (see Battle of Bladensburg). The militia then abandoned Washington without a fight. President James Madison and the remainder of the U.S. government fled the capital shortly before the British arrived.

The British then entered and burned the capital during the most notably destructive raid of the war. British troops set fire to the capital's most important public buildings, including the Presidential Mansion (the White House), the United States Capitol, the Arsenal, the Navy Yard, the Treasury Building, and the War Office, as well as the north end of the Long Bridge, which crossed the Potomac River into Virginia. The British, however, spared the Patent Office and the Marine Barracks. Dolley Madison, the first lady, or perhaps members of the house staff, rescued the Lansdowne Portrait, a full-length painting of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, as the British approached the Mansion.

The aftermath of the war kicked off a mild crisis, with many northerners pushing for a relocation of the capitol with a vote brought to the floor of Congress proposing the removal of the government to Philadelphia. It was defeated 83 to 74 votes, and the seat of government remained in Washington, D.C.

The B&O opened a rail line from Baltimore to Washington in 1835. Passenger traffic on the Washington Branch had increased by the 1850s, as the company opened a large station in 1851 on New Jersey Avenue NW, just north of the Capitol. Further railroad development continued after the Civil War, with a new B&O line (the Metropolitan Branch) connecting Washington to the west, and the introduction of competition from the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in the 1870s. In 1907, Union Station opened as the city's central terminal.

Almost immediately after the "Federal City" was laid out north of the Potomac, some residents south of the Potomac in Alexandria County, D.C., began petitioning to be returned to Virginia's jurisdiction. Over time, a larger movement grew to separate Alexandria from the District for several reasons:

Alexandria was a center for slave trading. There was increasing talk of abolition of slavery in the national capital. Alexandria's economy would suffer if slavery were outlawed in the District of Columbia. (In 1848, Congressman Abraham Lincoln submitted a bill to abolish slavery within the District, which failed.)

There was an active abolition movement in Virginia; the pro-slavery faction held a slim majority in the Virginia General Assembly[citation needed ]. If Alexandria and Alexandria County were retroceded to Virginia, they would provide two new pro-slavery representatives[citation needed ].

Alexandria's economy had stagnated as competition with the port of Georgetown, D.C., had begun to favor the north side of the Potomac, where most members of Congress and local federal officials resided.

The Residence Act prohibited federal offices from locating in Virginia.

The Alexandria Canal, which connected the C&O Canal to Alexandria, needed repairs, which the federal government was reluctant to fund.

After a referendum, Alexandria County's citizens petitioned Congress and Virginia to return the area to Virginia. By an act of Congress on July 9, 1846, and with the approval of the Virginia General Assembly, the area south of the Potomac (39 square miles or 100 square kilometers) was returned, or "retroceded," to Virginia effective in 1847.

The retroceded land was then known as Alexandria County, Virginia, and now includes a portion of the independent city of Alexandria and all of Arlington County, the successor to Alexandria County. A large portion of the retroceded land near the river was an estate of George Washington Parke Custis, who had supported the retrocession and helped develop the charter in the Virginia General Assembly for the County of Alexandria, Virginia. The estate (Arlington Plantation) would be passed on to his daughter (the wife of Robert E. Lee), and would eventually become Arlington National Cemetery.

Washington remained a small city of a few thousand residents, virtually deserted during the summertime, until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. President Abraham Lincoln created the Army of the Potomac to defend the federal capital, and thousands of soldiers came to the area. The significant expansion of the federal government to administer the war-and its legacies, such as veterans' pensions-led to notable growth in the city's population - from 75,000 in 1860 to 132,000 in 1870.

Throughout the war, the city was defended by a ring of military forts that mostly deterred the Confederate army from attacking. One notable exception was the Battle of Fort Stevens in July 1864, in which Union soldiers repelled troops under the command of Confederate General Jubal A. Early. This battle was only the second time a U.S. President came under enemy fire during wartime when Lincoln visited the fort to observe the fighting. (The first had been James Madison during the War of 1812.) Meanwhile, over 20,000 sick and injured Union soldiers were treated in various permanent and temporary hospitals in the capital.

On April 14, 1865, just days after the end of the war, Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth during the play Our American Cousin. The next morning, at 7:22 am, President Lincoln died in the house across the street, the first American president to be assassinated. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton said, "Now he belongs to the ages."

By 1870, the District's population had grown 75% from the previous census to nearly 132,000 residents. Despite the city's growth, Washington still had dirt roads and lacked basic sanitation. The situation was so bad that some members of Congress suggested moving the capital further west, but President Ulysses S. Grant refused to consider such a proposal.

In response to the poor conditions in the capital, Congress passed the Organic Act of 1871, which revoked the individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and created a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia. The act provided for a governor appointed by the President, a legislative assembly with an upper-house composed of eleven appointed council members and a 22-member house of delegates elected by residents of the District, as well as an appointed Board of Public Works charged with modernizing the city.

President Grant appointed Alexander Robey Shepherd, an influential member of the Board of Public Works, to the post of governor in 1873. Shepherd authorized large-scale municipal projects, which greatly modernized Washington. However, the governor spent three times the money that had been budgeted for capital improvements. He ultimately bankrupted the city. In 1874, Congress abolished the District's territorial government and replaced it with a three-member Board of Commissioners appointed by the President, of which one was a representative from the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The three Commissioners would then elect one of themselves to be president of the commission.

An additional act of Congress in 1878 made the three-member Board of Commissioners the permanent government of the District of Columbia. The act also had the effect of eliminating any remaining local institutions such as the boards on schools, health, and police. The Commissioners would maintain this form of direct rule for nearly a century.

The first motorized streetcars in the District began service in 1888 and spurred growth in areas beyond the City of Washington's original boundaries. In 1888, Congress required that all new developments within the District conform to the layout of the City of Washington. The City of Washington's northern border of Boundary Street was renamed Florida Avenue in 1890, reflecting growth of suburban areas in the County of Washington. The city's streets were extended throughout the District starting in 1893. An additional law passed in 1895 mandated that Washington formally absorb Georgetown, which until then had maintained a nominal separate identity, and renamed its streets. With a consolidated government and the transformation of suburban areas within the District into urban neighborhoods, the entire city eventually took on the name Washington, D.C.

In the early 1880s, the Washington City Canal was covered over. Originally an expansion of Tiber Creek, the canal connected the Capitol with the Potomac, running along the north side of the Mall where Constitution Avenue is today. However, as the nation transitioned over to railroads for its transport, the canal had become nothing more than a stagnant sewer, and so it was removed.

Some reminders of the canal still exist. South of the Capitol, a road named Canal Street connects Independence Avenue, SW, and E Street, SE (although the northernmost section of the street was renamed Washington Avenue to commemorate the state of Washington). A lock keeper's house built in 1835 at the eastern terminal of the C&O Canal (where the C&O emptied into Tiber Creek and the Potomac River) remains at the southwest corner of Constitution Avenue, NW, (formerly B Street, NW) and 17th Street, NW (see: Lockkeeper's House, C & O Canal Extension). The western end of the City Canal emptied into the Potomac and connected with the C&O Canal near the lock keeper's house.

One of the most important Washington architects of this period was the German immigrant Adolf Cluss. From the 1860s to the 1890s, he constructed over 80 public and private buildings throughout the city, including the National Museum, the Agriculture Department, Sumner and Franklin schools.

The Washington Monument, a tribute to George Washington and the world's tallest stone structure, was completed in 1884.

In 1901, the Senate Park Improvement Commission of the District of Columbia (the "McMillan Commission"), which Congress had formed the previous year, formulated the McMillan Plan, an architectural plan for the redevelopment of the National Mall. The commission was inspired by L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the city, which had not been fully realized. The members of the commission also sought to emulate the grandeur of European capitals such as Paris, London, and Rome. They were also strongly influenced by the City Beautiful movement, a Progressive ideology that intended to build civic virtue in the poor through important, monumental architecture. Several of the Commission members, including Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. had in fact participated in the 1893 World Columbian Exposition, which was widely popular and helped to spread interest in the City Beautiful movement.

The McMillan Plan, in many respects, was an early form of urban renewal that removed many of the slums that surrounded the United States Capitol, replacing them with new public monuments and government buildings. The Plan proposed a redesign of the National Mall and the construction of the future Burnham-designed Union Station. World War I interrupted the execution of the Plan, but construction of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922 largely completed it.

Although the McMillan Plan resulted in the demolition of some slums in the Federal Triangle area, substandard housing was a much larger problem in the city during the early 1900s, with large portions of the population living in so-called "alley dwellings." Progressive efforts eventually led to the creation of the Alley Dwelling Authority in 1934. The agency, led by John Ihlder, was an early example of a public housing agency, and was responsible for demolishing slum housing and building new units that were affordable, modern, and sanitary.

During his first administration (which started in 1913), President Woodrow Wilson introduced segregation into several federal departments, for the first time since 1863. He supported some cabinet appointees in their request to segregate employees and create separate lunchrooms and restrooms. He was highly criticized for this, especially as he had attracted numerous votes from blacks. The policy held for decades.

One advantage of federal rule over the District of Columbia was that the public school teachers were considered federal workers. Although the schools were segregated, black and white teachers were paid on an equal scale. The system attracted highly qualified teachers, especially for the M Street School (later called Dunbar High School), the academic high school for African Americans.

In July 1919, whites, including uniformed sailors and soldiers, attacked blacks in Washington during Red Summer, when violence broke out in cities across the country. The catalyst in Washington was the rumored arrest of a black man for rape; in four days of mob violence, white men randomly beat black people on the street and pulled others off streetcars for attacks. When police refused to intervene, the black population fought back. Troops tried to restore order as the city closed saloons and theaters, but a summer rainstorm had a more dampening effect. Fifteen people were killed: 10 whites, including two police officers, and five blacks. Fifty people were seriously wounded and another 100 less severely wounded. The NAACP protested to President Wilson.

On July 28, 1932, President Herbert Hoover ordered the United States Army to forcibly evict the " Bonus Army" of World War I veterans who gathered in Washington, D.C., to secure promised veterans' benefits early. U.S. troops dispersed the last of the "Bonus Army" the next day.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the city's population grew rapidly with the creation of additional Federal agencies under the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, during which most of the Federal Triangle buildings were constructed.

World War II brought further population increases-more than 300,000 between 1940 and 1943-and a significant housing shortage, as existing residents were urged to rent rooms to the influx of Federal staffers who arrived from throughout the country. "It is a terrible place to live", magazine wrote in 1943; the city's infrastructure was unable to grow as fast as the population, and residents had to wait in long lines for food, transportation, shopping, entertainment, and almost every other area of life. During the war, as many as 200,000 railroad passengers passed through Union Station in a single day. The Pentagon was built in nearby Arlington to efficiently consolidate Federal defense offices under one roof. One of the largest office buildings in the world, it was built rapidly during the early years of the war, partially opening in 1942 and complete in 1943.

President Harry Truman ended de jure racial discrimination in the Armed Forces and federal workplaces in 1948. Parks and recreation facilities in Washington remained segregated until 1954. Public schools were desegregated soon after.

When the city's Board of Education began building the John Phillip Sousa Junior High, a group of parents from the Anacostia neighborhood petitioned to have the school admit black and white students. When it was constructed, the board declared that only whites could enroll. The parents sued in a case decided in the landmark Supreme Court ruling Bolling v. Sharpe. Partly due to the District's unique status under the Constitution, the court decided unanimously that all of D.C.'s public schools had to be integrated. In the wake of this and the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, the Eisenhower administration decided to make D.C. schools the first to integrate, as an example to the rest of the nation.

In 1957, Washington became the first major city in the nation with a majority African-American population. Like many cities, it had received thousands of black people from the South in the Great Migration, starting during World War I and accelerating in the 1940s and 1950s. With the buildup of government and defense industries during World War II, many new residents found jobs. In the postwar years, whites who were better established economically began to move to newer housing in adjoining states in the suburbanization movement that occurred around most major cities. They were aided by the extensive highway construction undertaken by federal and state governments.

On August 28, 1963, Washington took center stage in the Civil Rights Movement, with the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famed " I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Following King's assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Washington was devastated by the riots that broke out in the U Street neighborhood and spread to other black areas, including Columbia Heights. The civil unrest drove many whites and middle-class blacks to move out of the city core. There had already been a steady movement of some residents to suburban locations searching for newer housing and avoiding school integration. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, many businesses left the downtown and inner-city areas, drawn to suburban malls and following residential development. Marks of riots scarred some neighborhoods into the late 1990s.

The District elects a delegate to the House of Representatives who has the usual rights of House membership, such as seniority and committee membership, except that the delegate cannot formally vote. The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on March 29, 1961, gives the people a voice in the electoral college of the size of the smallest state (three votes).

In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, ceding some of its power over the city to a new, directly elected city council and mayor. Walter Washington became the first elected mayor of Washington, D.C.

The first 4.6 miles (7.4 km) of the Washington Metro subway system opened on March 27, 1976, following years of acrimonious battles with Congress over funding and highway construction, including a rejected proposal to build a north-central freeway. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority was created in 1973 through a merger of several local bus companies. Several new Metro stations such as Friendship Heights, Van Ness, Gallery Place, Columbia Heights, U Street, and Navy Yard - Ballpark eventually became catalysts for commercial development. The Kennedy Center opened and several new museums and historical monuments on and around the National Mall.

In 1978 Congress sent the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment to the states for ratification. This amendment would have granted the District representation in the House, Senate, and Electoral College as if it were a state. The proposed amendment had a seven-year limit for ratification, and only sixteen states ratified it in this period.

The city's local government, particularly during the mayoralty of Marion Barry, was criticized for mismanagement and waste. Barry defeated incumbent mayor Walter Washington in the 1978 Democratic Party primary. Barry was then elected mayor, serving three successive four-year terms. During his administration in 1989, The Washington Monthly magazine claimed that the District had "the worst city government in America". After being imprisoned for six months on misdemeanor drug charges in 1990, Barry did not run for reelection. In 1991, Sharon Pratt Kelly became the first black woman to lead a major U.S. city.

Barry was elected again in 1994 and by the next year the city had become nearly insolvent. In 1995, Congress created the District of Columbia Financial Control Board to oversee all municipal spending and rehabilitate the city government. Mayor Anthony Williams won election in 1998. His administration oversaw a period of greater prosperity, urban renewal, and budget surpluses. The District regained control over its finances in 2001 and the oversight board's operations were suspended in September of that year.

Williams did not seek reelection in 2006. Councilmember Adrian Fenty defeated Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp in that year's Democratic primary race to succeed Williams as mayor and started his term in 2007. Shortly upon taking office, Fenty won approval from the city council to directly manage and overhaul the city's under-performing public school system. However, Fenty lost a Democratic Party primary to former Council Chair Vincent Gray in August 2010. Mayor Gray won the general election and assumed office in January 2011 with a pledge to bring economic opportunities to more of the city's residents and under-served areas.

The Washington area was a main target of the September 11, 2001 attacks. American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked by five Islamic terrorists and flew into the Pentagon in Arlington County, just across the Potomac River from Washington, killing 125 people inside the building, as well as 64 onboard the airliner, including the five terrorists. United Airlines Flight 93, which was also hijacked and which went down in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, supposedly intended to target either the White House or the United States Capitol Building.

Since September 11, 2001, several high-profile incidents and security scares have occurred in Washington. In October 2001, anthrax attacks, involving anthrax-contaminated mail sent to numerous members of Congress, infected 31 staff members and killed two U.S. Postal Service employees who handled the contaminated mail at the Brentwood sorting facility. An FBI and DOJ investigation determined the likely culprit of the anthrax attacks to be Bruce Edwards Ivins, a scientist, but he committed suicide in July 2008 before formal charges were filed.

During three weeks of October 2002, fear spread among residents of the Washington area during the Beltway Sniper attacks. Ten apparently random victims were killed, with three others wounded, before John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested on October 24, 2002.

In 2003 and 2004, a serial arsonist set over 40 fires, mainly in the District and the close-in Maryland suburbs, with one fire killing an older woman. A local man was arrested in the serial arson case in April 2005 and pleaded guilty.

The toxin ricin was found in the mailroom of the White House in November 2003 and in the mailroom of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in February 2004.

After the September 11 attacks, security was increased in Washington. Screening devices for biological agents, metal detectors, and vehicle barriers became more commonplace at office buildings as well as government buildings. After the 2004 Madrid train bombings, local authorities decided to test explosives detectors on the vulnerable Washington Metro subway system.

When U.S. forces in Pakistan raided a house suspected of being a terrorist hideout, they found information several years old about planned attacks on Washington, D.C., New York City, and Newark, New Jersey. It was directed to intelligence officials. On August 1, 2004, the Secretary of Homeland Security put the city on Orange (High) Alert. A few days later, security checkpoints appeared in and around the Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom neighborhoods, and fences were erected on monuments once freely accessible, such as the United States Capitol. Tours of the White House were limited to those arranged by members of Congress. Screening devices for biological agents, metal detectors, and vehicle barriers became more common at office buildings as well as government buildings and in transportation facilities. This ultra-tight security was referred to as "Fortress Washington"; many people objected to "walling off Washington" based on information several years old. The vehicle inspections set up around the U.S. Capitol were removed in November 2004.

On September 16, 2013, the Washington Navy Yard shooting occurred when lone gunman Aaron Alexis fatally shot twelve people and injured three others in a mass shooting at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) inside the Washington Navy Yard in the Southeast quadrant of the city. The attack, which took place in the Navy Yard's Building 197, began around 8:20 a.m. EDT and ended when Alexis was killed by police around 9:20 a.m. EDT. It was the second-deadliest mass murder on a U.S. military base, behind only the Fort Hood shooting in November 2009.

On November 8, 2016, Washington voters were asked to advise the Council to approve or reject a proposal, which included advising the council to petition Congress to admit the District as the 51st State and approve a constitution and boundaries for the new state. The voters of the District of Columbia voted overwhelmingly to advise the Council to approve the proposal, with 86% of voters voting to advise approving the proposal. Challenges, including Republican opposition in Congress and constitutional issues, continue to cause problems for the movement.

New migration patterns have appeared. Washington has a steadily declining black population, due to many African Americans' leaving the city for suburbs. At the same time, the city's Caucasian and Hispanic populations have steadily increased. Since 2000 there has been a 7.3% decrease in the African-American population, and a 17.8% increase in the white population. In addition, many African Americans are going to the South in a New Great Migration, because of family ties, increased opportunities and lower cost of living. They still are a majority in the city, comprising 51 percent of the population.

1. ^ Wolgemuth, Kathleen L. (April 1959). "Woodrow Wilson and Federal Segregation". The Journal of Negro History. 44 (2): 158-173. doi:10.2307/2716036. JSTOR 2716036. S2CID 150080604.

2. ^ MacCord, Howard A. (1957). "Archeology of the Anacostia Valley of Washington, D.C. and Maryland". Journal of Washington Academy of Sciences. 47 (12).

3. ^ Downing, Margaret Brent (1918). "The Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill". Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 21 - via Google Books.

4. (1) ^ United States Statutes at Large: Volume 1: 1st Congress: 3rd Session; Chapter 17> XVII.-An Act to amend "An act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the government of the United States"
(2) "An ACT to amend "An act for establishing the TEMPORARY and PERMANENT SEAT of the GOVERNMENT of the United States". Congress of the United States: at the third session, begun and held at the city of Philadelphia, on Monday the sixth of December, one thousand seven hundred and ninety. Philadelphia: Printed by Francis Childs and Johnn Swaine (1791). March 3, 1791 - via Library of Congress. Provided, That nothing herein contained, shall authorize the erection of the public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the river Potomac, as required by the aforesaid act.

5. ^ Washington, George (1792). John C. Fitzpatrick (ed.). Proclamation: Georgetown, March 30, 1791. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources: 1745-1799. 31: January 22, 1790-March 9, 1792. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (August, 1939) - via Google Books. Now therefore for the purposes of amending and completing the location of the whole of the said territory of the ten miles square in conformity with the said amendatory act of Congress, I do hereby declare and make known that the whole of said territory shall be located and included within the four lines following, that is to say: Beginning at Jones's point, the upper cape of Hunting Creek in Virginia, and at an angle in the outset of 45 degrees west of the north: ...

6. (1) ^ Mathews, Catharine Van Cortlandt (1908). Chapter IV: The City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia: 1791-1793. Andrew Ellicott: His Life and Letters. New York: Grafton Press. pp. 81-86. ISBN 9780795015106. OCLC 1599880 - via Google Books.
(2) Bedini, Silvio A. (1970). "Benjamin Banneker and the Survey of the District of Columbia, 1791" (PDF). Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 47. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 7, 2017 - via boundarystones.org.
(3) Bedini, Silvio A. (Spring-Summer 1991). "The Survey of the Federal Territory: Andrew Ellicott and Benjamin Banneker". Washington History. Washington, D.C.: Historical Society of Washington, D.C. 3 (1): 76-95. JSTOR 40072968.

7. National Capital Planning Commission (1976). Boundary markers of the Nation's Capital: a proposal for their preservation & protection : a National Capital Planning Commission Bicentennial report. Washington, D.C.: National Capital Planning Commission; For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, United States Government Printing Office. OCLC 3772302 - via HathiTrust. Digital Library.

8. (1) ^ Stewart, p. 57.
(2) Ellicott, Andrew (1793). "Territory of Columbia". Maps. Library of Congress. Archived from the original on October 11, 2016. Notes: ... Accompanied by positive and negative photocopies of 3 letters dated 1793 relating to the map, 1 of which signed by: And'w Ellicott.

9. ^ L'Enfant, Peter Charles; United States Coast and Geodetic Survey; United States Commissioner of Public Buildings (1887). "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of t(he) United States: projected agreeable to the direction of the President of the United States, in pursuance of an act of Congress passed the sixteenth day of July, MDCCXC, "establishing the permanent seat on the bank of the Potowmac": [Washington, D.C.]". Washington: United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. LCCN 88694201. Facsimile of the 1791 L'Enfant plan in Repository of the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, Washington, D.C.

10. Partridge, William T. (1930). Design of the Federal City: L'Enfant Plan of Washington Superimposed on the Rectangular System From which He Worked. Chart 5: L'Enfant's Methods And Features of His Plan For The Federal City: Reports and plans, Washington region: supplementary technical data to accompany annual report: National Capital Planning Commission. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. p. 33. OCLC 15250016 - via HathiTrust Digital Library.

11. L'Enfant, P.C. (August 19, 1791). "Letter to The President of the United States". Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 2: 38-48 - via Google Books.

12. (1) ^ Federal Writers' Project (1937). Washington, City and Capital: Federal Writers' Project. Works Progress Administration / United States Government Printing Office. p. 210.
(2)
(3) "Enlarged image of central portion of The L'Enfant Plan for Washington" (PDF). National Park Service.
(4) Passanneau, Joseph R. (2004). Washington Through Two Centuries: A History in Maps and Images. New York: The Monacelli Press, Inc. pp. 14-16, 24-27. ISBN 1-58093-091-3. OCLC 53443052.
(5) Faethz, E.F.M.; Pratt, F.W. (1874). "Sketch of Washington in embryo, viz: Previous to its survey by Major L'Enfant: Compiled from the rare historical researches of Dr. Joseph M. Toner ... combined with the skill of S.R. Seibert C.E.". Map in the collection of the Library of Congress. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
(6) Freedom Plaza in downtown D.C. contains an inlay of the central portion of L'Enfant's plan at coordinates

13. ^ L'Enfant, P.C. (June 22, 1791). "To George Washington from Pierre-Charles L'Enfant, 22 June 1791". Founders Online. National Archives and Records Administration. Archived from the original on December 31, 2017.

14. Ellicott, Andrew (February 23, 1792). "To Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll and David Stuart, Esqs." In

15. (1) ^ Phillips, Philip Lee (1917). The Beginnings of Washington, As Described in Books, Maps and Views. Washington, D.C.: Published for the author. pp. 29-30. OCLC 420824175 - via Internet Archive.
(2) Bartlett, Dr. G. Hunter (1922). Frank H. Severance (ed.). "Andrew and Joseph Ellicott: The Plans of Washington City and the Village of Buffalo and Some of the Persons Concerned". Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society: Recalling Pioneer Days. Buffalo, New York: Buffalo Historical Society. 26: 7 - via Google Books.

16. Kite, from ^ L'Enfant and Washington" in website of Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons (Freemasons). Retrieved January 11, 2009.

17. ^ Partridge, William T. (1930). L'Enfant's Methods And Features of His Plan For The Federal City. Reports and plans, Washington region: supplementary technical data to accompany annual report: National Capital Planning Commission. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. p. 23. OCLC 15250016. At HathiTrust Digital Library.

18. ^ Bryan, Wilhelmus B. (1899). "Something About L'Enfant And His Personal Affairs". Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 2: 113 - via Google Books.

19. ^ The L'Enfant and McMillan Plans in "Washington, D.C., A National Register of Historic Places Travel Inventory" in official website of the U.S. National Park Service Accessed August 14, 2008.

20. Heine, Cornelius W. (1953). "The Washington City Canal". Records of the Columbia Historical Society. Historical Society of Washington, DC. 53-56: 1-27. JSTOR 40067664.

21. ^ Chesapeake and Ohio Canal: A Guide to Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. Handbook 142. Washington, DC: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. 1991. p. 15. ISBN 0-912627-43-3.

22. ^ "James Madison". Orange County, Virginia: James Madison Museum. Archived from the original on July 26, 2011. Did Dolley Madison really save Washington's portrait from the British?
According to Madison's slave and personal valet, Paul Jennings, she did not. According to Jennings, "It has often been stated in print, that when Mrs. Madison escaped from the White House, she cut out from the frame the large portrait of Washington (now in one of the parlors there), and carried it off. This is totally false. She had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried off was the silver in her reticule, as the British were thought to be but a few squares off, and were expected every moment. John Suse' [Jean-Pierre Sioussat] ( a Frenchman, then door-keeper, and still living) and Magraw, the President's gardener, took it down and sent it off on a wagon, with some large silver urns and such other valuables as could be hastily got hold of."

23. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions About Washington, D.C". Historical Society of Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on March 15, 2008.

24. ^ Harry C. Ways, "The Washington Aqueduct: 1852-1992." (Baltimore, MD: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, 1996)

25. ^ "Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals By Race, 1790 to 1990" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. September 13, 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 26, 2008.

26. ^ Dodd, Walter Fairleigh (1909). The government of the District of Columbia. Washington, D.C.: John Byrne & Co. pp. 40-5.

27. ^ Wilcox, Delos Franklin (1910). Great cities in America: their problems and their government. The Macmillan Company. pp. 27-30.

28. ^ William A. Richardson, ed. (1891). Supplement to the Revised statutes of the United States, Volume 1 (2 ed.). Washington: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 173-80.

29. Laws relating to the permanent system of highways outside of the cities of Washington and Georgetown. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. 1908. p. 3.

30. ^ Tindall, William (1907). Origin and government of the District of Columbia. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 27.

31. (1) ^ "Lock Keeper's House" marker in website of HMdb.org: The Historical Marker Database. Retrieved 2009-10-26.
(2) Coordinates of lock keeper's house:

32. (1) ^ "Washington City Canal: Plaque beside the Lockkeeper's House marking the former location of in Washington, D.C. Archived February 23, 2010, at the Wayback Machine in website of dcMemorials.com: Memorials, monuments, statues & other outdoor art in the Washington D.C. area & beyond, by M. Solberg. Retrieved 2009-10-26.
(2) "The Washington City Canal" marker in website of HMdb.org: The Historical Marker Database. Retrieved 2009-10-26.

33. ^ "The Canal Connection" marker in website of HMdb.org: The Historical Marker Database. Retrieved 2009-10-26.

34. National Park Service, Washington, D.C. (2012). ^ "Washington Monument: History & Culture."

35. ^ The L'Enfant and McMillan Plans in "Washington, D.C., A National Register of Historic Places Travel Inventory" in official website of the U.S. National Park Service. Retrieved 2009-09-14.

36. ^ Kathleen L. Wolgemuth, "Woodrow Wilson and Federal Segregation", The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 44, No. 2 (April 1959 ), p. 158

37. Thomas Sowell, ^ "The Education of Minority Children" in Thomas Sowell website. Retrieved 2007-12-12.

38. Kenneth D. Ackerman, ^ Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties (NY: Carroll & Graf, 2007, ISBN 978-1619450011), 60-2

39. ^ New York Times: "Protest Sent to Wilson," July 22, 1919. Retrieved January 21, 2010.

40. ^ Home Rule or House Rule? Congress and the Erosion of Local Governance in the District of Columbia by Michael K. Fauntroy, University Press of America, 2003 at Google Books, page 94

41. ^ Fogle, Jeanne (2009). A Neighborhood Guide to Washington, D.C.'s Hidden History. Charleston, SC: The History Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-59629-652-7.

42. Constance McL. Green, ^ Secret City: History of Race Relations in the Nation's Capital (1969)

43. "Marion Barry". WETA Public Broadcasting. 2001. Archived from the original on March 24, 2005.

44. ^ Simon, Richard; Cloud, David S.; Bennett, Brian (September 16, 2013). "Navy Yard shooter 'had a pattern of misconduct'". Los Angeles Times.

45. ^ "Census 2000 Demographic Profile Highlights". United States Census Bureau. 2001. Archived from the original on August 23, 2011.

46. ^ Frey, William H. (May 2004). "The New Great Migration: Black Americans' Return to the South, 1965-2000" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. pp. 1-4. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 28, 2008.

Crew, Harvey W.; Webb, William Bensing; Wooldridge, John (1892). Centennial History of the City of Washington, D. C. Dayton, Ohio: United Brethren Publishing House. LCCN 06028029. OCLC 2843595 - via Internet Archive.

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The Seat of Empire: a history of Washington, D.C. 1790 to 1861

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The history of Washington, D.C. , is tied to its role as the capital of the United States. Originally inhabited by an Algonquian-speaking people known as the Nacotchtank, the site of the District of Columbia along the Potomac River was first selected by President George Washington.

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The Exponential Growth of Washington, DC,

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The Exponential Growth of Washington, DC,

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The first half of the 20th century was an explosive time in the capital in socially, economically, and culturally. Also Washington began to gain worldwide attention, grand homes for embassies were constructed on 16th Street, north of the White House. As you go farther along Massachusetts Avenue, a strip that is now known as Embassy Row. President Woodrow Wilson gave Washington a voice in world affairs through the country’s entry into World War I in 1917 and through his work to establish the League of Nations, an organization promoting international cooperation. After the war, civic pride and culture flooded the city. Art galleries, museums, concert halls, and the Lincoln Memorial were built. The Commission of Fine Arts was established to advise city planners on the appropriate design and placement of memorials and federal buildings. At the same time, however, run-down buildings were multiplying in Washington’s back alleys, and neglected neighborhoods only became worse during the Great Depression years of the 1930s. The New Deal programs of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt provided employment to thousands of workers in Washington, not only in existing government offices but also in the construction of new federal buildings, including the Supreme Court and the Federal Triangle buildings. Washington’s population surged to about 950,000 during World War II (1939–45).

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Washington, D.C., D.C. in full District of Columbia, city and capital of the United States of America. It is coextensive with the District of Columbia (the city is often referred to as simply D.C.) and is located on the northern shore of the Potomac River at the river's navigation head-that is, the transshipment point between waterway and land transport. The state of Maryland borders the District of Columbia to the north, east, and west, and the state of Virginia borders the District on the southern shore of the Potomac River.

In 1790 the U.S. Congress established a 100-square-mile (260-square-km) territory to serve as the permanent seat of the federal government. (The territory was later named the District of Columbia, within which the city of Washington was built.) The location for the new territory was centralized among the Eastern Seaboard states and was about 90 miles (145 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean on land ceded by Maryland and Virginia. In the mid-19th century the land south of the Potomac River that had been ceded by Virginia was returned to the state, reducing the District to its present-day size.

After the American Civil War (1861-65), the city of Washington expanded beyond its originally planned boundaries and became legally indistinguishable from the District of Columbia. Washington, D.C., remains a territory, not a state, and since 1974 it has been governed by a locally elected mayor and city council over which Congress retains the power of veto. The Washington metropolitan area covers nearly 4,000 square miles (10,360 square km) and encompasses 10 counties, 5 in Maryland ( Montgomery, Prince George's, Frederick, Charles, and Calvert) and 5 in Virginia ( Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Stafford, and Prince William). Area District, 68 square miles (176 square km). Pop. (2000) 572,059; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Division, 3,727,565; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Area, 4,796,183; (2010) 601,723; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Division, 4,377,088; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Area, 5,582,170.

Character of the city

Washington is an extraordinary city, one with multiple personalities: a working federal city, an international metropolis, a picturesque tourist destination, an unmatched treasury of the country's history and artifacts, and a cosmopolitan centre that retains a neighbourly small-town ambience. The role Washington plays as the capital of the United States often overshadows its lively local history and its complex political, economic, and social issues. About half the land in Washington is owned by the U.S. government, which pays no taxes on it. Several hundred thousand people in the D.C. metropolitan area work for the federal government.

During the last half of the 20th century, "suburban flight" of the middle class contributed to the city's loss of more than one-fourth of its population. As new jobs, especially those in the high-technology industries, were created in Maryland and Virginia, the population of the suburbs increased as much as 50 percent per decade. By the first decade of the 21st century, however, Washington's population began to increase as younger workers moved into revitalized city neighbourhoods. Despite these shifts in population, the economies of the District and those of nearby Maryland and Virginia remain interdependent.

Landscape

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Washington, D.C. | History, Map, Population, & Facts

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Washington, D.C., capital of the United States, coextensive with the District of Columbia, located on the northern shore of the Potomac River. Often referred to simply as D.C., the city is an international metropolis, a picturesque tourist destination, and an unmatched treasury of the country's history and artifacts.

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With the streets paved and illuminated, the water running, streetcars and rail transportation operating, and other practical matters well in place, Washington, D.C. was ready to address its appearance. In 1900, as if on cue, a senator from Michigan, James McMillan, persuaded his colleagues to appoint an advisory committee to develop designs for a more beautiful and graceful city. This retired railroad mogul was determined to use his architectural and engineering knowledge to complete the job that L’Enfant had started a century earlier. With his own money, McMillan sent a committee that included landscapist Frederick Law Olmsted (designer of New York’s Central Park), sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and noted architects Daniel Burnham and Charles McKim to Europe for 7 weeks to study the landscaping and architecture of that continent’s great capitals.

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As with many cities, Washington, D.C.'s past is written in its landscape. Behold the lustrous Potomac River, whose discovery by Captain John Smith in 1608 led to European settlement of this area. Take note of the city's layout: the 160-foot-wide avenues radiating from squares and circles, the sweeping vistas, the abundant parkland, all very much as Pierre Charles L'Enfant intended when he envisioned the "Federal District" in 1791. Look around and you will see the Washington Monument, the U.S. Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, and other landmarks, their very prominence in the flat, central cityscape attesting to their significance in the formation of the nation's capital.

But Washington's history is very much a tale of two cities. Beyond the National Mall, the memorials, and the federal government buildings lies "D.C.," the municipality. Righteous politicians and others speak critically of "Washington"-shorthand, we understand, for all that is wrong with government. They should be more precise. With that snide dismissal, critics dismiss, as well, the particular locale in which the capital resides. It is a place of vibrant neighborhoods and vivid personalities, a vaunted arts-and-culture scene, international diversity, rich African-American heritage, uniquely Washingtonian attractions and people-the very citizens who built the capital in the first place and have kept it running ever since.

The settlers who arrived in 1608 weren't the region's first inhabitants, of course. Captain John Smith may have been the first European to discover this waterfront property of lush greenery and woodlands, but the Nacotchtank and Piscataway tribes were way ahead of him. As Smith and company settled the area, they disrupted the American Indians' way of life and introduced European diseases. The Native Americans gradually were driven away.

By 1751, Irish and Scottish immigrants had founded "George Town," named for the king of England and soon established as an important tobacco-shipping port. Several houses from those days still exist in modern-day Georgetown: The Old Stone House (on M St. NW), a woodworker's home built around the 1760s, is now operated by the National Park Service and open to the public, and a few magnificent ship merchants' mansions still stand on N and Prospect streets, though these are privately owned and not open to the public. (Their properties once directly overlooked the Potomac River, but no longer: The Potomac River has receded quite a bit, as you'll see.) For a walking tour of Georgetown, see: https://www.frommers.com/destinations/washington-d-c/walking-tours/walking-tour-2
Birth of the Capital
After colonists in George Town and elsewhere in America rebelled against British rule, defeating the British in the American Revolution (1775-1783), Congress, in quick succession, unanimously elected General George Washington as the first president of the United States, ratified a U.S. Constitution, and proposed that a city be designed and built to house the seat of government for the new nation and to function fully in commercial and cultural capacities. Much squabbling ensued. The North wanted the capital; the South wanted the capital. President Washington huddled with his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, and devised a solution that Congress approved in 1790: The nation's capital would be "a site not exceeding 10 miles square" located on the Potomac. The South was happy, for this area was nominally in their region; Northern states were appeased by the stipulation that the South pay off the North's Revolutionary War debt, and by the city's location on the North-South border. Washington, District of Columbia, made its debut.

The only problem was that the city was not exactly presentable. The brave new country's capital proved to be a tract of undeveloped wilderness, where pigs, goats, and cows roamed free, and habitable houses were few and far between. Thankfully, the city was granted the masterful 1791 plan of the gifted but temperamental French-born engineer, Pierre Charles L'Enfant. Slaves, free blacks, and immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and other countries worked to fulfill L'Enfant's remarkable vision, erecting first the White House (the city's oldest federal structure), then the Capitol and other buildings. (Read The Great Decision: Jefferson, Adams, Marshall and the Battle for the Supreme Court, by Cliff Sloan and David McKean [PublicAffairs Books], for excellent descriptions of the early days of the capital, its institutions, and the strong personalities that helped forge them.) Gradually, the nation's capital began to take shape, though too slowly perhaps for some. The writer Anthony Trollope, visiting in 1860, declared Washington "as melancholy and miserable a town as the mind of man can conceive."

The Civil War & Reconstruction

During the Civil War, the capital became an armed camp and headquarters for the Union Army, overflowing with thousands of followers. Parks became campgrounds; churches, schools, and federal buildings, including the Capitol and the Patent Office (now the National Portrait Gallery), became hospitals; and forts ringed the town. The population grew from 60,000 to 200,000, as soldiers, former slaves, merchants, and laborers converged on the scene. The streets were filled with the wounded, nursed by the likes of Walt Whitman, one of many making the rounds to aid ailing soldiers. In spite of everything, President Lincoln insisted that work on the Capitol continue. "If people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on," he said.

Lincoln himself kept on, sustained perhaps by his visits to St. John's Church, across Lafayette Square from the White House. Lincoln attended evening services when he could, arriving alone after other churchgoers had entered and slipping out before the service was over. And then on the night of April 14, 1865, just as the days of war were dwindling down and Lincoln's vision for unity was being realized, the president was fatally shot at Ford's Theatre while attending a play.

In the wake of the Civil War and President Lincoln's assassination, Congress took stock of the capital and saw a town worn out by years of war-awash with people but still lacking the most fundamental facilities. Indeed, the city was a mess. There was talk of moving the capital city elsewhere, perhaps to St. Louis or some other more centrally located city. A rescue of sorts arrived in the person of public works leader Alexander "Boss" Shepherd, who initiated a "comprehensive plan of improvement" that at last incorporated the infrastructure so necessary to a functioning metropolis, including a streetcar system that allowed the District's overflowing population to move beyond city limits. Shepherd also established parks, constructed streets and bridges, and installed water and sewer systems and gas lighting, gradually nudging the nation's capital closer to showplace design. Notable accomplishments included the completion of the Washington Monument in 1884 (after 36 years) and the opening of the first Smithsonian museum in 1881.

With the streets paved and illuminated, the water running, streetcars and rail transportation operating, and other practical matters well in place, Washington, D.C. was ready to address its appearance. In 1900, as if on cue, a senator from Michigan, James McMillan, persuaded his colleagues to appoint an advisory committee to develop designs for a more beautiful and graceful city. This retired railroad mogul was determined to use his architectural and engineering knowledge to complete the job that L'Enfant had started a century earlier. With his own money, McMillan sent a committee that included landscapist Frederick Law Olmsted (designer of New York's Central Park), sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and noted architects Daniel Burnham and Charles McKim to Europe for 7 weeks to study the landscaping and architecture of that continent's great capitals.

"Make no little plans," Burnham counseled fellow members. "They have no magic to stir men's blood, and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble and logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever growing insistency."

The committee implemented a beautification program that continued well into the 20th century. Other projects added further enhancements: A presidential Commission of Fine Arts, established in 1910, positioned monuments and fountains throughout the city; FDR's Works Progress Administration erected public buildings embellished by artists. The legacy of these programs is on view today, in the cherry trees along the Tidal Basin, the Lincoln Memorial at the west end of the Mall, the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the Library of Congress, Union Station, the Corcoran Gallery, and many other sights, each situated in its perfect spot in the city.

The American capital was coming into its own on the world stage, as well, emerging from the Great Depression, two world wars, and technological advancements in air and automobile travel as a strong, respected global power. More and more countries established embassies here, and the city's international population increased exponentially.

Black Broadway Sets the Stage

As the capital city blossomed, so did African-American culture. The many blacks who had arrived in the city as slaves to help build the Capitol, the White House, and other fundamental structures of America's capital stayed on, later joined by those who came to fight during the Civil War, or to begin new lives after the war.

From 1900 to 1960, Washington, D.C. became known as a hub of black culture, education, and identity, centered on a stretch of U Street NW, called "Black Broadway," where Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Pearl Bailey often performed in speakeasies and theaters. Many of these stars performed at the Howard Theatre, which was the first full-size theater devoted to black audiences and entertainers when it opened in 1910. Nearby Howard University, created in 1867, distinguished itself as the nation's most comprehensive center for higher education for blacks. (The reincarnated "U&14th Street Corridors," or "New U," is now a diverse neighborhood of blacks, whites, Asians, and Latinos, and a major restaurant and nightlife destination.) The fact remained, however, that the city was a divided society, in which segregation and discrimination prevented blacks from achieving parity with whites.
The Civil Rights Era Ushers in a New Age
By the late 1950s, African Americans made up more than half of Washington's total population of 805,000, and their numbers continued to grow, reaching a peak of 70% in 1970, before beginning a steady decline that continues to this day. One hundred years or so after the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution (abolishing slavery) and the 15th Amendment to the Constitution (outlawing the denial of voting rights based on race or color), African Americans generally remained unequal members of society. Despite the best efforts and contributions of individuals-from abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a major force in the human rights movement in the 19th century, to educator and civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune, who served as an advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s-the country, and this city, had a long way to go in terms of equal rights. (Consider reading works by Edward P. Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose short-story collections, Lost in the City and All Aunt Hagar's Children, will take you beyond D.C.'s political and tourist attractions into the neighborhoods and everyday lives of African Americans during the mid-20th century.)

The tipping point may have come in 1954, when Thurgood Marshall (appointed the country's first black Supreme Court justice in 1967) argued and won the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which denied the legality of segregation in America. This decision, amid a groundswell of frustration and anger over racial discrimination, helped spark the civil rights movement of the 1960s. On August 28, 1963, black and white Washingtonians were among the 250,000 who marched on Washington for jobs and freedom and listened to an impassioned Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver his stirring "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where 41 years earlier, during the memorial's dedication ceremony, black officials were required to sit separately from the white attendees.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, added to a general sense of despair and tumult. On the day before his funeral, hundreds of thousands of mourners stood in line for blocks outside the Capitol all day and night to pay their respects to the president, who lay in state inside the Rotunda of the Capitol.

Then Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, and all hell broke loose. For three days, angry, frustrated, and heartsick blacks rioted, setting fire to and looting businesses and homes. Three neighborhoods in particular were decimated: Shaw's Seventh Street NW, the H Street corridor in northeast D.C. (now known as the Atlas District), and the U&14th Street Corridors. The corner of 14th and U streets served as the flashpoint. Ben's Chili Bowl was ground zero and remained open throughout the riots to provide food and shelter to activists, firefighters, and public servants. Rehabilitation of these neighborhoods has been decades in the making.

As the 20th century progressed, civil rights demonstrations led to Vietnam War protests led to revelations about scandals, from President Nixon's Watergate political debacle (Ever seen All the President's Men? You have to.), to D.C. Mayor Marion Barry's drug and corruption problems, to President Clinton's sexual shenanigans. It was an era of speaking out to expose corruption and scandal. A president who authorizes illegal activity? Not acceptable. A mayor with a drug problem? Not acceptable. A president who dallies with a White House intern his daughter's age, then lies about it? Nope, not acceptable.

Beyond the sordid headlines, the city itself was flourishing. A world-class subway system opened, the Capital One Arena (originally the MCI Center, then the Verizon Center) sports and concert venue debuted and transformed its aged downtown neighborhood into the immensely popular Penn Quarter, and arts-and-culture venues like the Kennedy Center and Shakespeare theaters came to worldwide attention, receiving much acclaim.
Twenty-First Century Times
Having begun the 20th century as a backwater, Washington finished the century a sophisticated city, profoundly shaken but not paralyzed by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Barack Obama's landmark win as the first African-American president, in 2008, lifted the country at a critical time, conveying an "all things are possible" perspective.

But nearly two full decades into the 21st century, the sense of American unity and fellowship that prevailed after the tragedy of 9/11, and the hopefulness that attended the election of President Obama, now lie in tatters, done in by pervasive differences of political opinion coupled with an unwillingness to compromise. We can thank the divisive 2016 presidential campaign for laying bare these deep differences-and the subsequent election of Donald Trump for amplifying and provoking them.

What this means for Washington, D.C., in its dual role as the nation's capital and as a culturally, historically, and socially integral city in its own right, is that the District has become even more of a focal point for the worries and dreams of the nation. Always a place for protests, the city continues to serve in that regard, but now the demonstrations are often huge, starting with the Women's March on January 21, 2017, the day after the presidential inauguration, and continuing in spring 2018 with the inaugural March for Our Lives demonstration to end gun violence.

As the seat of the federal government, the city is a natural venue for demonstrations and celebrations of American values. But it helps that in this very Democratic District (where only 4.1% of voters turned out for Trump), the city's own leaders embrace the idea that this is what democracy looks like. Women rule: Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton won her 15th term in office, representing residents of the District of Columbia, and Mayor Muriel Bowser is a strong champion for the city, tackling education, housing, transportation, and crime issues.

History informs one's outlook, but so does the present. Look again at the Potomac River and think of Captain John Smith, but observe the Georgetown University crew teams rowing in unison across the surface of the water and tour boats traveling between Georgetown and Old Town Alexandria. As you traverse the city, admire L'Enfant's inspired design, but also enjoy the sight of office workers, artists and students, and people of every possible ethnic and national background making their way around town. Tour the impressive landmarks and remember their namesakes, but make time for D.C.'s homegrown attractions, whether a meal at a sidewalk cafe in Dupont Circle, jazz along U Street, a walking tour past Capitol Hill's old town houses, or a visit to a church where slaves or those original immigrants once worshiped.

Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.

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As with many cities, Washington, D.C.'s past is written in its landscape. Behold the lustrous Potomac River, whose discovery by Captain John Smith in 1608 led to European settlement of this area. Take note of the city's layout: the 160-foot-wide avenues radiating from squares and circles, the sweeping vistas, the abundant parkland, all very much as Pierre Charles L'Enfant intended when he envisioned the "Federal District" in 1791.

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Size of Washington, DC, after the Civil War

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Size of Washington, DC, after the Civil War

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After the American Civil War (1861–65), the city of Washington expanded beyond its originally planned boundaries and became legally indistinguishable from the District of Columbia. Washington, D.C., remains a territory, not a state, and since 1974 it has been governed by a locally elected mayor and city council over which Congress retains the power of veto. The Washington metropolitan area covers nearly 4,000 square miles (10,360 square km) and encompasses 10 counties, 5 in Maryland (Montgomery, Prince George’s, Frederick, Charles, and Calvert) and 5 in Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Stafford, and Prince William). Area District, 68 square miles (176 square km). Pop. (2000) 572,059; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Division, 3,727,565; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Area, 4,796,183; (2010) 601,723; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Division, 4,377,088; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Area, 5,582,170.

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Washington, D.C., D.C. in full District of Columbia, city and capital of the United States of America. It is coextensive with the District of Columbia (the city is often referred to as simply D.C.) and is located on the northern shore of the Potomac River at the river's navigation head-that is, the transshipment point between waterway and land transport. The state of Maryland borders the District of Columbia to the north, east, and west, and the state of Virginia borders the District on the southern shore of the Potomac River.

In 1790 the U.S. Congress established a 100-square-mile (260-square-km) territory to serve as the permanent seat of the federal government. (The territory was later named the District of Columbia, within which the city of Washington was built.) The location for the new territory was centralized among the Eastern Seaboard states and was about 90 miles (145 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean on land ceded by Maryland and Virginia. In the mid-19th century the land south of the Potomac River that had been ceded by Virginia was returned to the state, reducing the District to its present-day size.

After the American Civil War (1861-65), the city of Washington expanded beyond its originally planned boundaries and became legally indistinguishable from the District of Columbia. Washington, D.C., remains a territory, not a state, and since 1974 it has been governed by a locally elected mayor and city council over which Congress retains the power of veto. The Washington metropolitan area covers nearly 4,000 square miles (10,360 square km) and encompasses 10 counties, 5 in Maryland ( Montgomery, Prince George's, Frederick, Charles, and Calvert) and 5 in Virginia ( Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Stafford, and Prince William). Area District, 68 square miles (176 square km). Pop. (2000) 572,059; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Division, 3,727,565; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Area, 4,796,183; (2010) 601,723; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Division, 4,377,088; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Area, 5,582,170.

Character of the city

Washington is an extraordinary city, one with multiple personalities: a working federal city, an international metropolis, a picturesque tourist destination, an unmatched treasury of the country's history and artifacts, and a cosmopolitan centre that retains a neighbourly small-town ambience. The role Washington plays as the capital of the United States often overshadows its lively local history and its complex political, economic, and social issues. About half the land in Washington is owned by the U.S. government, which pays no taxes on it. Several hundred thousand people in the D.C. metropolitan area work for the federal government.

During the last half of the 20th century, "suburban flight" of the middle class contributed to the city's loss of more than one-fourth of its population. As new jobs, especially those in the high-technology industries, were created in Maryland and Virginia, the population of the suburbs increased as much as 50 percent per decade. By the first decade of the 21st century, however, Washington's population began to increase as younger workers moved into revitalized city neighbourhoods. Despite these shifts in population, the economies of the District and those of nearby Maryland and Virginia remain interdependent.

Landscape

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Washington, D.C. | History, Map, Population, & Facts

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Washington, D.C., capital of the United States, coextensive with the District of Columbia, located on the northern shore of the Potomac River. Often referred to simply as D.C., the city is an international metropolis, a picturesque tourist destination, and an unmatched treasury of the country's history and artifacts.

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The city only increased in size as a result of the Civil War. Slaves owned in Washington were emancipated on April 16, 1862, nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation, and it therefore became a hub for freed slaves. After, it remained a home to a significant and vibrant African American population, which included abolitionist Frederick Douglass. A substantial army was set up just to protect the capital during the war, and the federal government grew around this administration.

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Founded in 1790, the nation's capital has been a dynamic city with plenty of highs and lows to match its place in American history.

Founded on July 16, 1790, Washington, DC is unique among American cities because it was established by the Constitution of the United States to serve as the nation's capital. You can read the actual line at the National Archives. From its beginning, it has been embroiled in political maneuvering, sectional conflicts and issues of race, national identity, compromise and, of course, power.

Like many decisions in American history, the location of the new city was to be a compromise: Alexander Hamilton and northern states wanted the new federal government to assume Revolutionary War debts, and Thomas Jefferson and southern states who wanted the capital placed in a location friendly to slave-holding agricultural interests.

President George Washington chose the exact site along the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, and the city was officially founded in 1790 after both Maryland and Virginia ceded land to this new "district," to be distinct and distinguished from the rest of the states. To design the city, he appointed Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who presented a vision for a bold, modern city featuring grand boulevards (now the streets named for states) and ceremonial spaces reminiscent of another great world capital, L'Enfant's native Paris. He planned a grid system, at which the center would be the Capitol building.

Even before coming of age, DC was nearly completely destroyed. During the War of 1812 against Great Britain, enemy forces invaded the city and burned much of it to the ground, including the newly completed White House, the Capitol and the Library of Congress (including all of its books). Thomas Jefferson later replenished the library's collection by selling off his entire library for $23,950 in 1815.

After the devastation, the city remained small, especially in terms of permanent residents. Soon it would become smaller in physical size as well. In 1847, the portion of the city that had originally belonged to Virginia was retroceded, after the voters of Alexandria elected to leave DC, feeling that they had been left out of development on the other side of the river. You can still see some surviving, original markers for the District today.

The city only increased in size as a result of the Civil War. Slaves owned in Washington were emancipated on April 16, 1862, nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation, and it therefore became a hub for freed slaves. After, it remained a home to a significant and vibrant African American population, which included abolitionist Frederick Douglass. A substantial army was set up just to protect the capital during the war, and the federal government grew around this administration.

Post-war Washington experienced substantial expansion, eventually absorbing nearby Georgetown and surrounding rural areas beyond L'Enfant's original plans. The initial boundary of Washington City was Florida Avenue, originally called Boundary Street. The first neighborhoods were those that grew up around the Capitol ( Capitol Hill), the Center Market ( Downtown), and the White House (Lafayette Square). The expansion of streetcar lines in the mid-19th century spurred creation of new suburbs.

In 1901, the city proposed the McMillan Plan, which set out to fully complete L'Enfant's original designs. This included a redesign and expansion of the National Mall, now the crown jewel of DC. The city continued to expand and develop during the rest of the 20th century, though it suffered riots and civil unrest in the '60s and '70s, and many residents left inner city areas for the suburbs. Today, these downtown areas are undergoing an urban renaissance, and many people are moving back into Washington itself.

Though a capital city, it is ironic that residents of Washington lack full self-governance. Representation in Congress is limited to a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives and a shadow senator. In 1964, Washingtonians were first allowed to vote in Presidential elections; the city was allowed to elect its own mayor only in 1973.

It remains a vibrant and culturally diverse city today. The city is rich with international cultures, African American heritage and culture and it's also one of America's most gay-friendly cities. In fact, DC recognized same-sex marriage in 2010, before the Supreme Court, nearby, ruled that it was a right in 2015.

After more than 200 years as the nation's capital, Washington has developed as a complex and layered city, with a distinctive character: both a town for locals, an international center of power and an amazing place to visit.

Today, you can have the best of both worlds by delving into the nation's past with a visit on the National Mall and museums or adventuring into very modern, exciting neighborhoods.

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Founded on July 16, 1790, Washington, DC is unique among American cities because it was established by the Constitution of the United States to serve as the nation's capital. You can read the actual line at the National Archives.

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After the devastation, the city remained small, especially in terms of permanent residents. Soon it would become smaller in physical size as well, in 1847, the portion of the city that had originally belonged to Virginia was retroceded. Then, after the voters of Alexandria elected to leave DC, feeling that they had been left out of development on the other side of the river, You can still see some surviving, original markers for the District today.

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Founded in 1790, the nation's capital has been a dynamic city with plenty of highs and lows to match its place in American history.

Founded on July 16, 1790, Washington, DC is unique among American cities because it was established by the Constitution of the United States to serve as the nation's capital. You can read the actual line at the National Archives. From its beginning, it has been embroiled in political maneuvering, sectional conflicts and issues of race, national identity, compromise and, of course, power.

Like many decisions in American history, the location of the new city was to be a compromise: Alexander Hamilton and northern states wanted the new federal government to assume Revolutionary War debts, and Thomas Jefferson and southern states who wanted the capital placed in a location friendly to slave-holding agricultural interests.

President George Washington chose the exact site along the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, and the city was officially founded in 1790 after both Maryland and Virginia ceded land to this new "district," to be distinct and distinguished from the rest of the states. To design the city, he appointed Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who presented a vision for a bold, modern city featuring grand boulevards (now the streets named for states) and ceremonial spaces reminiscent of another great world capital, L'Enfant's native Paris. He planned a grid system, at which the center would be the Capitol building.

Even before coming of age, DC was nearly completely destroyed. During the War of 1812 against Great Britain, enemy forces invaded the city and burned much of it to the ground, including the newly completed White House, the Capitol and the Library of Congress (including all of its books). Thomas Jefferson later replenished the library's collection by selling off his entire library for $23,950 in 1815.

After the devastation, the city remained small, especially in terms of permanent residents. Soon it would become smaller in physical size as well. In 1847, the portion of the city that had originally belonged to Virginia was retroceded, after the voters of Alexandria elected to leave DC, feeling that they had been left out of development on the other side of the river. You can still see some surviving, original markers for the District today.

The city only increased in size as a result of the Civil War. Slaves owned in Washington were emancipated on April 16, 1862, nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation, and it therefore became a hub for freed slaves. After, it remained a home to a significant and vibrant African American population, which included abolitionist Frederick Douglass. A substantial army was set up just to protect the capital during the war, and the federal government grew around this administration.

Post-war Washington experienced substantial expansion, eventually absorbing nearby Georgetown and surrounding rural areas beyond L'Enfant's original plans. The initial boundary of Washington City was Florida Avenue, originally called Boundary Street. The first neighborhoods were those that grew up around the Capitol ( Capitol Hill), the Center Market ( Downtown), and the White House (Lafayette Square). The expansion of streetcar lines in the mid-19th century spurred creation of new suburbs.

In 1901, the city proposed the McMillan Plan, which set out to fully complete L'Enfant's original designs. This included a redesign and expansion of the National Mall, now the crown jewel of DC. The city continued to expand and develop during the rest of the 20th century, though it suffered riots and civil unrest in the '60s and '70s, and many residents left inner city areas for the suburbs. Today, these downtown areas are undergoing an urban renaissance, and many people are moving back into Washington itself.

Though a capital city, it is ironic that residents of Washington lack full self-governance. Representation in Congress is limited to a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives and a shadow senator. In 1964, Washingtonians were first allowed to vote in Presidential elections; the city was allowed to elect its own mayor only in 1973.

It remains a vibrant and culturally diverse city today. The city is rich with international cultures, African American heritage and culture and it's also one of America's most gay-friendly cities. In fact, DC recognized same-sex marriage in 2010, before the Supreme Court, nearby, ruled that it was a right in 2015.

After more than 200 years as the nation's capital, Washington has developed as a complex and layered city, with a distinctive character: both a town for locals, an international center of power and an amazing place to visit.

Today, you can have the best of both worlds by delving into the nation's past with a visit on the National Mall and museums or adventuring into very modern, exciting neighborhoods.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Founded on July 16, 1790, Washington, DC is unique among American cities because it was established by the Constitution of the United States to serve as the nation's capital. You can read the actual line at the National Archives.

# data[].attributes.body
Even before becoming a city, DC was nearly completely destroyed. During the War of 1812 against Great Britain, enemy forces invaded the city and burned much of it to the ground, including the newly completed White House, the Capitol, and the Library of Congress.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Leading up to the American Revolution, one of the colonists' chief complaints about the British Empire was that it imposed "taxation without representation"-a slogan that Washington, D.C. has since adopted as its unofficial motto.

In 2000, D.C. started printing "Taxation Without Representation" on all of the city's standard license plates, and in 2016, the city updated it to "End Taxation Without Representation." The license plates reference the fact that D.C. residents pay federal taxes without having any voting representatives in the U.S. Congress, and they're part of a long history of D.C.'s fight for the same voting rights and self-governance as the 50 states.

After Reconstruction, Congress Abolishes D.C.'s Government

Washington, D.C. is the ancestral home of the Nacotchtank people, also known as Anacostans. After British colonists drove them out of their land, it became part of Maryland and Virginia. In 1790, both of these states ceded the territory to establish the District of Columbia as the capital of the United States. At the time there were about 3,000 people living in D.C.-too few to become a state-and white men who owned property in D.C. continued to vote in either Maryland or Virginia as they had before.

Buyenlarge/Getty Images

The U.S. Constitution ( Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17) instructed that the seat of government be a "District (not exceeding ten miles square)" over which Congress would "exercise exclusive legislation." James Madison spelled out the reason for the arrangement, explaining that maintaining an isolated district would prevent any state from holding too much power by being home to the national government.

Starting in the early 19th century, Congress established a series of different government models that allowed voters to elect some local leaders while stripping them of their previously-held right to vote for president or elect voting members of Congress. Then in the 1870s, Congress stripped D.C. of its local representation too.

During Reconstruction, Black Americans made up about a third of D.C.'s population. Once Black men won the right to vote in local D.C. elections in 1867, they quickly established themselves in the city's local government. Congress responded by dismantling that government through new laws in 1871 and 1874 that gave the president-whom D.C. residents still couldn't vote for-the sole power to appoint D.C. leaders. The president could consult with Congress when appointing these leaders, but because D.C. voters couldn't elect voting members of Congress, they had no way to influence these decisions.

The president, congressmen and many federal staff members remained immune to these changes because they were registered to vote in their home states. D.C.'s restrictions on voting and self-governance only applied to full-time residents. And, like the voting restrictions that southern states used to prevent Black men from voting after Reconstruction, these restrictions were specifically designed to suppress Black political power.

John Tyler Morgan, a former Confederate soldier who joined the U.S. Senate in 1877, was explicit about this intent. He said Congress had "to burn down the barn to get rid of the rats...the rats being the negro population and the barn being the government of the District of Columbia."
READ MORE: When Did African Americans Get the Right to Vote?
Civil Rights Era Brings Change

The 1870s system that denied D.C. residents the right vote for their own local government-as well as the congressional members and president who oversaw that government-stayed in place for nearly a century. During that time, D.C.'s Black population grew. In 1957, D.C. became the nation's first predominantly-Black city. In 1970, the Black population peaked at over 537,000 people, or 71 percent of the city's population. By then, many residents had moved to the suburbs of Maryland and Virginia where they had full voting rights.

Black D.C. residents fought to change their city's unequal status during the civil rights movement, and won some key victories. The first was the right to vote for the president and vice president through the 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961. The city held its first presidential election in 1964, voting overwhelmingly for the sitting president Lyndon B. Johnson over Barry Goldwater, a Republican senator from Arizona who'd voted against the Civil Rights Act earlier that year.

Still, there were drawbacks to this victory. Even though D.C.'s most recent census population of nearly 706,000 people made it more populous than Wyoming and Vermont, it couldn't receive more electors than the lowest-populated state. Since 1964, D.C. has always had three electors, the lowest number possible, regardless of its population size.

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Self-governance was another battle. A century after Reconstruction, there were still many white members of Congress who didn't believe a city with such a large Black population should govern itself. John Rarick, a House member representing Louisiana, "warned that any measure giving the district power to govern itself could lead to a takeover by the Black Muslims," the Associated Press reported in 1972.

Despite such resistance, D.C. residents won the right to elect their own mayor and city council through the Home Rule Act, which Congress passed in 1973. The next year, D.C. elected Democrat Walter E. Washington as its first home-rule mayor. Still, there were limitations on what the new home-rule government could do. Congress has the right to reject any laws the D.C. mayor and council pass, and has used it to strike down many D.C. laws.

In 1971, D.C. also won a non-voting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. This delegate can serve on committees and speak on the floor but cannot vote on the final version of any legislation. There was actually a significant push to give the city voting members of Congress at the time: In 1978, Congress passed a constitutional amendment that would have given Washington, D.C. two voting senators and a voting member of the House. However, it died in 1985 after failing to receive ratification from the required 38 states.

Could D.C. Become the 51st State?

Since 1980, D.C. has advocated for congressional representation through statehood. Activists and politicians have connected D.C.'s fight for representation to similar struggles in the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. Like D.C. residents in 1960, the U.S. citizens who live in these territories pay federal taxes but have no voting members in Congress and can't vote for president.

Many statehood advocates have pointed out that there is no constitutional reason that D.C., a 68-square-mile city with a larger population than Wyoming and Vermont, cannot become a state.

"Opponents of Washington statehood make specious legal arguments, claiming that the Constitution mandates complete federal authority over the district and thus precludes statehood," Susan Rice, Barack Obama's former national security advisor, wrote in the New York Times. "But the Constitution merely states that the federal enclave cannot exceed 10 square miles; it does not prohibit carving out a limited area for government buildings that remains under federal control, while making the rest of the district into a state."

Congress has introduced multiple bills that would make D.C. the 51st state, including one passed by the House of Representatives on April 22, 2021. So far, none have passed in both houses, but politicians and activists continue to push for statehood.
READ MORE: U.S. States: 50 States and State Capitals

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Leading up to the American Revolution, one of the colonists' chief complaints about the British Empire was that it imposed "taxation without representation"-a slogan that Washington, D.C. has since adopted as its unofficial motto. In 2000, D.C. started printing "Taxation Without Representation" on all of the city's standard license plates, and in 2016, the city updated it to "End Taxation Without Representation."

# data[].attributes.body
President George Washington chose the exact site along the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, and the city was officially founded in 1790 after both Maryland and Virginia ceded land to this new “district,” to be distinct and distinguished from the rest of the states. To design the city, he appointed Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who presented a vision for a bold, modern city featuring grand boulevards (now the streets named for states) and ceremonial spaces reminiscent of another great world capital, L’Enfant’s native Paris. He planned a grid system, at which the center would be the Capitol building.

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Founded in 1790, the nation's capital has been a dynamic city with plenty of highs and lows to match its place in American history.

Founded on July 16, 1790, Washington, DC is unique among American cities because it was established by the Constitution of the United States to serve as the nation's capital. You can read the actual line at the National Archives. From its beginning, it has been embroiled in political maneuvering, sectional conflicts and issues of race, national identity, compromise and, of course, power.

Like many decisions in American history, the location of the new city was to be a compromise: Alexander Hamilton and northern states wanted the new federal government to assume Revolutionary War debts, and Thomas Jefferson and southern states who wanted the capital placed in a location friendly to slave-holding agricultural interests.

President George Washington chose the exact site along the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, and the city was officially founded in 1790 after both Maryland and Virginia ceded land to this new "district," to be distinct and distinguished from the rest of the states. To design the city, he appointed Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who presented a vision for a bold, modern city featuring grand boulevards (now the streets named for states) and ceremonial spaces reminiscent of another great world capital, L'Enfant's native Paris. He planned a grid system, at which the center would be the Capitol building.

Even before coming of age, DC was nearly completely destroyed. During the War of 1812 against Great Britain, enemy forces invaded the city and burned much of it to the ground, including the newly completed White House, the Capitol and the Library of Congress (including all of its books). Thomas Jefferson later replenished the library's collection by selling off his entire library for $23,950 in 1815.

After the devastation, the city remained small, especially in terms of permanent residents. Soon it would become smaller in physical size as well. In 1847, the portion of the city that had originally belonged to Virginia was retroceded, after the voters of Alexandria elected to leave DC, feeling that they had been left out of development on the other side of the river. You can still see some surviving, original markers for the District today.

The city only increased in size as a result of the Civil War. Slaves owned in Washington were emancipated on April 16, 1862, nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation, and it therefore became a hub for freed slaves. After, it remained a home to a significant and vibrant African American population, which included abolitionist Frederick Douglass. A substantial army was set up just to protect the capital during the war, and the federal government grew around this administration.

Post-war Washington experienced substantial expansion, eventually absorbing nearby Georgetown and surrounding rural areas beyond L'Enfant's original plans. The initial boundary of Washington City was Florida Avenue, originally called Boundary Street. The first neighborhoods were those that grew up around the Capitol ( Capitol Hill), the Center Market ( Downtown), and the White House (Lafayette Square). The expansion of streetcar lines in the mid-19th century spurred creation of new suburbs.

In 1901, the city proposed the McMillan Plan, which set out to fully complete L'Enfant's original designs. This included a redesign and expansion of the National Mall, now the crown jewel of DC. The city continued to expand and develop during the rest of the 20th century, though it suffered riots and civil unrest in the '60s and '70s, and many residents left inner city areas for the suburbs. Today, these downtown areas are undergoing an urban renaissance, and many people are moving back into Washington itself.

Though a capital city, it is ironic that residents of Washington lack full self-governance. Representation in Congress is limited to a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives and a shadow senator. In 1964, Washingtonians were first allowed to vote in Presidential elections; the city was allowed to elect its own mayor only in 1973.

It remains a vibrant and culturally diverse city today. The city is rich with international cultures, African American heritage and culture and it's also one of America's most gay-friendly cities. In fact, DC recognized same-sex marriage in 2010, before the Supreme Court, nearby, ruled that it was a right in 2015.

After more than 200 years as the nation's capital, Washington has developed as a complex and layered city, with a distinctive character: both a town for locals, an international center of power and an amazing place to visit.

Today, you can have the best of both worlds by delving into the nation's past with a visit on the National Mall and museums or adventuring into very modern, exciting neighborhoods.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Founded on July 16, 1790, Washington, DC is unique among American cities because it was established by the Constitution of the United States to serve as the nation's capital. You can read the actual line at the National Archives.

# data[].attributes.body
Washington, D.C. is the ancestral home of the Nacotchtank people, also known as Anacostans. After British colonists drove them out of their land, it became part of Maryland and Virginia.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Leading up to the American Revolution, one of the colonists' chief complaints about the British Empire was that it imposed "taxation without representation"-a slogan that Washington, D.C. has since adopted as its unofficial motto.

In 2000, D.C. started printing "Taxation Without Representation" on all of the city's standard license plates, and in 2016, the city updated it to "End Taxation Without Representation." The license plates reference the fact that D.C. residents pay federal taxes without having any voting representatives in the U.S. Congress, and they're part of a long history of D.C.'s fight for the same voting rights and self-governance as the 50 states.

After Reconstruction, Congress Abolishes D.C.'s Government

Washington, D.C. is the ancestral home of the Nacotchtank people, also known as Anacostans. After British colonists drove them out of their land, it became part of Maryland and Virginia. In 1790, both of these states ceded the territory to establish the District of Columbia as the capital of the United States. At the time there were about 3,000 people living in D.C.-too few to become a state-and white men who owned property in D.C. continued to vote in either Maryland or Virginia as they had before.

Buyenlarge/Getty Images

The U.S. Constitution ( Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17) instructed that the seat of government be a "District (not exceeding ten miles square)" over which Congress would "exercise exclusive legislation." James Madison spelled out the reason for the arrangement, explaining that maintaining an isolated district would prevent any state from holding too much power by being home to the national government.

Starting in the early 19th century, Congress established a series of different government models that allowed voters to elect some local leaders while stripping them of their previously-held right to vote for president or elect voting members of Congress. Then in the 1870s, Congress stripped D.C. of its local representation too.

During Reconstruction, Black Americans made up about a third of D.C.'s population. Once Black men won the right to vote in local D.C. elections in 1867, they quickly established themselves in the city's local government. Congress responded by dismantling that government through new laws in 1871 and 1874 that gave the president-whom D.C. residents still couldn't vote for-the sole power to appoint D.C. leaders. The president could consult with Congress when appointing these leaders, but because D.C. voters couldn't elect voting members of Congress, they had no way to influence these decisions.

The president, congressmen and many federal staff members remained immune to these changes because they were registered to vote in their home states. D.C.'s restrictions on voting and self-governance only applied to full-time residents. And, like the voting restrictions that southern states used to prevent Black men from voting after Reconstruction, these restrictions were specifically designed to suppress Black political power.

John Tyler Morgan, a former Confederate soldier who joined the U.S. Senate in 1877, was explicit about this intent. He said Congress had "to burn down the barn to get rid of the rats...the rats being the negro population and the barn being the government of the District of Columbia."
READ MORE: When Did African Americans Get the Right to Vote?
Civil Rights Era Brings Change

The 1870s system that denied D.C. residents the right vote for their own local government-as well as the congressional members and president who oversaw that government-stayed in place for nearly a century. During that time, D.C.'s Black population grew. In 1957, D.C. became the nation's first predominantly-Black city. In 1970, the Black population peaked at over 537,000 people, or 71 percent of the city's population. By then, many residents had moved to the suburbs of Maryland and Virginia where they had full voting rights.

Black D.C. residents fought to change their city's unequal status during the civil rights movement, and won some key victories. The first was the right to vote for the president and vice president through the 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961. The city held its first presidential election in 1964, voting overwhelmingly for the sitting president Lyndon B. Johnson over Barry Goldwater, a Republican senator from Arizona who'd voted against the Civil Rights Act earlier that year.

Still, there were drawbacks to this victory. Even though D.C.'s most recent census population of nearly 706,000 people made it more populous than Wyoming and Vermont, it couldn't receive more electors than the lowest-populated state. Since 1964, D.C. has always had three electors, the lowest number possible, regardless of its population size.

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Self-governance was another battle. A century after Reconstruction, there were still many white members of Congress who didn't believe a city with such a large Black population should govern itself. John Rarick, a House member representing Louisiana, "warned that any measure giving the district power to govern itself could lead to a takeover by the Black Muslims," the Associated Press reported in 1972.

Despite such resistance, D.C. residents won the right to elect their own mayor and city council through the Home Rule Act, which Congress passed in 1973. The next year, D.C. elected Democrat Walter E. Washington as its first home-rule mayor. Still, there were limitations on what the new home-rule government could do. Congress has the right to reject any laws the D.C. mayor and council pass, and has used it to strike down many D.C. laws.

In 1971, D.C. also won a non-voting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. This delegate can serve on committees and speak on the floor but cannot vote on the final version of any legislation. There was actually a significant push to give the city voting members of Congress at the time: In 1978, Congress passed a constitutional amendment that would have given Washington, D.C. two voting senators and a voting member of the House. However, it died in 1985 after failing to receive ratification from the required 38 states.

Could D.C. Become the 51st State?

Since 1980, D.C. has advocated for congressional representation through statehood. Activists and politicians have connected D.C.'s fight for representation to similar struggles in the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. Like D.C. residents in 1960, the U.S. citizens who live in these territories pay federal taxes but have no voting members in Congress and can't vote for president.

Many statehood advocates have pointed out that there is no constitutional reason that D.C., a 68-square-mile city with a larger population than Wyoming and Vermont, cannot become a state.

"Opponents of Washington statehood make specious legal arguments, claiming that the Constitution mandates complete federal authority over the district and thus precludes statehood," Susan Rice, Barack Obama's former national security advisor, wrote in the New York Times. "But the Constitution merely states that the federal enclave cannot exceed 10 square miles; it does not prohibit carving out a limited area for government buildings that remains under federal control, while making the rest of the district into a state."

Congress has introduced multiple bills that would make D.C. the 51st state, including one passed by the House of Representatives on April 22, 2021. So far, none have passed in both houses, but politicians and activists continue to push for statehood.
READ MORE: U.S. States: 50 States and State Capitals

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Leading up to the American Revolution, one of the colonists' chief complaints about the British Empire was that it imposed "taxation without representation"-a slogan that Washington, D.C. has since adopted as its unofficial motto. In 2000, D.C. started printing "Taxation Without Representation" on all of the city's standard license plates, and in 2016, the city updated it to "End Taxation Without Representation."