It's the Little Things: Standing on Capitol Hill

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Standing on Capitol Hill

I hadn't originally planned on going by the Capitol. Once I was in DC I decided that I needed to go by it. So, up Capitol Hill I went. It is an amazingly large and powerful looking building. It suites what goes on in it. This building has seen over 200 years of change, growth and expansion for this country. I am in awe of what the walls of this building have seen, heard and been a part of. Below are some facts about the Capitol building along with pictures.

~Congress first met in the Capitol Building on November 17, 1800.

~No one is buried in the Capitol. A tomb area was created for George Washington's body, but Washington's will expressed his wish to be buried at Mount Vernon, and that is where he is buried.

~The U.S. Capitol Dome is made of 8,909,200 pounds of cast iron.

~The dome iron is painted white to look like the rest of the building.

~The Supreme Court held sessions in the Capitol until its own building was completed in 1935.

~The Rotunda, used for inaugurations and distinguished individuals lying in state, is a circular room located on the second floor. It is 96 feet in diameter and rises 180 feet from the floor to the canopy.

~The custom of flying the flags 24 hours a day over the east and west fronts was begun during World War I.

~The top of the U.S. Capitol is 209 feet lower than the Washington Monument.

The Rotunda is modeled after the Pantheon.

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At the base of Capitol Hill is the Ulysses S. Grant statue. He faces toward the Lincoln Memorial with the Washington Monument being in the exact middle of the two, which also serve as the ends of The Mall. The second largest equestrian statue in the US is part of the U. S. Grant Memorial. The sculptor, Henry Merwin Shrady, died two weeks before the memorial dedication of the statue after working on it for 20 years.

On each side of Grant are the Artillery and Cavalry Groups and there are also four bronze lions as part of the memorial.