1.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
President's Park
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Presidents Park, located in Washington, D. C. encompasses the White House, a visitor center, Lafayette Square, and The Ellipse. Presidents Park was the name of Lafayette Square. The current Presidents Park is administered by the National Park Service, contests were held to solicit designs for both the United States Capitol and the Presidents residence. James Hobans design was selected, and he supervised the construction, later on, the White House was expanded with the West Wing, which now houses the office of the president and staff. The White House grounds include the South Lawn, Rose Garden, Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, Lafayette Square is a seven-acre public park located directly north of the White House on H Street, bounded by Jackson Place on the west, Madison Place on the east, and Pennsylvania Avenue. The square and the structures were designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1970. Planned as part of the grounds surrounding the Executive Mansion, this square was originally called Presidents Park. The park was separated from the White House grounds in 1804, in 1824, the park was officially renamed in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, the Frenchman who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Lafayette Square has been used as a racetrack, a graveyard, a zoo, a market, an encampment for soldiers during the War of 1812. Andrew Jackson Downing landscaped Lafayette Square in 1851 in the picturesque style, Presidents Park South is a 52 acres park located just south of the White House fence. Properly, the Ellipse is the name of the five-furlong circumference street within the park, the entire park is open to the public, and features various monuments. The Ellipse is also the location for a number of annual events, D. C. locals can often be heard to say they are on the Ellipse, which is understood to mean that the individual is on the field that is bounded by Ellipse Road. The Army Corps of Engineers began work on the Ellipse in 1867, the White House Visitor Center is located in the north end of the Herbert C. Hoover Building. Since September 11,2001, the center no longer serves as a starting point for those going on a reserved tour of the White House. The various exhibits provide a visitor experience for those who did not schedule a tour. The themes of the six permanent exhibits are First Families, Symbols & Images, White House Architecture, White House Interiors, Working White House, other exhibits change throughout the year. Washington, U. S. Department of the Interior, official website The White House White House Historical Association The Shape and History of The Ellipse in Washington, D. C. by Clark Kimberling
4.
White House
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The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D. C. It has been the residence of every U. S. president since John Adams in 1800, the term White House is often used to refer to actions of the president and his advisers, as in The White House announced that. The residence was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban in the Neoclassical style, construction took place between 1792 and 1800 using Aquia Creek sandstone painted white. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he added low colonnades on each wing that concealed stables and storage. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior, reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed Executive Residence in October 1817. Exterior construction continued with the addition of the semi-circular South portico in 1824, because of crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had all work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later in 1909, President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office, in the main mansion, the third-floor attic was converted to living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as an area for social events. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946, creating additional office space, by 1948, the houses load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the rooms were completely dismantled. Once this work was completed, the rooms were rebuilt. The Executive Residence is made up of six stories—the Ground Floor, State Floor, Second Floor, the property is a National Heritage Site owned by the National Park Service and is part of the Presidents Park. In 2007, it was ranked second on the American Institute of Architects list of Americas Favorite Architecture, in May 1790, New York began construction of Government House for his official residence, but he never occupied it. The national capital moved to Philadelphia in December 1790, the July 1790 Residence Act named Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the temporary national capital for a 10-year period while the Federal City was under construction. The City of Philadelphia rented Robert Morriss city house at 190 High Street for Washingtons presidential residence, the first president occupied the Market Street mansion from November 1790 to March 1797, and altered it in ways that may have influenced the design of the White House. As part of an effort to have Philadelphia named the permanent national capital, Pennsylvania built a much grander presidential mansion several blocks away. President John Adams also occupied the Market Street mansion from March 1797 to May 1800, on Saturday, November 1,1800, he became the first president to occupy the White House. The Presidents House in Philadelphia became a hotel and was demolished in 1832, the Presidents House was a major feature of Pierre Charles LEnfants plan for the newly established federal city, Washington, D. C
5.
H Street
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H Street is a set of east-west streets in several of the quadrants of Washington, D. C. It is also used as a name for the Near Northeast neighborhood. The H Street NE/NW neighborhood was one of Washingtons earliest and busiest commercial districts, H Street NE went into decline after World War II and businesses in the corridor were severely damaged during the 1968 riots. This part of the street did not start to recover until the 21st century, in 2002, the District of Columbia Office of Planning initiated a community-based planning effort to help revitalize the H Street NE corridor. In the mid-2000s, the Arts and Entertainment District began to revitalize as a nightlife district, H Street NE rapidly gentrified after 2007. The median sales price of houses on or near H Street NW from July to September 2009 was $417,000, H Street NE was voted the sixth most hipster place in America by Forbes magazine in September 2012. This process of gentrification led to tensions with some previous residents, after this intersection, there is a gap of two blocks where the street is interrupted by Hechinger Mall. H Street continues for a segment between 17th and 24th Streets NE. The road does not continue east of the Anacostia River, in Northwest Washington, H Street is the main street in Chinatown and one of the major east-west streets downtown. When Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was closed to traffic in the 1990s. The street also passes Lafayette Park and through the George Washington University campus, the city plan on which D. C. was laid out provides for a parallel H Street in the southwest and southeast quadrants of the city. Subsequent government actions, most notably the construction of I-395/I-295, disconnected the southern H Street in several places, in its current form, it does not run consecutively for more than two blocks at any point except for its easternmost extremity, near Fort Dupont Park. Notable residents who lived on H Street include, George B, the Statutes at Large of the United States of America From August,1893, to March,1895, and Recent Treaties, Conventions, and Executive Proclamations. | Community Organization H Street NE Strategic Development Plan What H Street Looked Like in 1947
6.
Jackson Place
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The block is situated on land once owned by the Decatur family, until 1869 when they sold it to Lorenzo Sherwood, who in turn sold the land to John Knower. In 1957, the Federal government acquired the townhouses on Jackson Place, the government had plans to demolish the buildings to make way for construction of a new Federal office building on the land. In 1962, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy intervened and the project was canceled, the block is lined by several townhouses constructed in the late 19th century. 712 Jackson Place was built in 1869 for Admiral James Blair, Rathbone is known for accompanying President Abraham Lincoln to Fords Theatre on the night of the assassination. During World War I, the building was home to the Committee for Public Information, the building at 716 Jackson Place is owned by the U. S. Government and is reserved for the exclusive use by former Presidents when they are in town. Purchased in the late 1950s, it became the Presidential Townhouse in 1969 by President Richard Nixon, the furnishings were very sparse until it was refurbished using private funds by President George W. Bush. The five story building includes two dining rooms, multiple bedrooms, and space for a Secret Service detail in the basement. 726 Jackson Place was used as temporary White House Press Briefing Room from August 2006 to July 2007 during renovations to the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. 736 Jackson Place was originally built around 1870 for Cornelia Knower Marcy, in the 1880s, Michigan Representative John Newberry and Senator James Blaine lived in the house. In 1887, Representative William Scott bought the house, the house was remodeled in 1895 by Carrere and Hastings. The townhouse served as quarters for President Theodore Roosevelt and his staff. Roosevelt only stayed briefly, before heading off to Oyster Bay. On October 3,1902, Roosevelt held a meeting in the house to deal with the coal strike occurring in Pennsylvania. The townhouse was bought in 1919 by the Womens City Club of Washington, the house was then sold to the National Lutheran Council of the United Lutheran Church in America. Today it houses the United States Digital Service Team, Benjamin Henry Latrobe designed the Decatur House, located at 748 Jackson Place. Later residents included Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, and Judah P. Benjamin, the Decatur House is now used as a museum. The Ewell House, since demolished, was built on Jackson Place in 1819 for Dr. Thomas Ewell, who was a physician in the city, and author of a popular medical book, The History of the Medical Society. For health reasons Ewell left Jackson Place and returned to a farm in Prince William County, Virginia, various government officials lived in the house, including Smith Thompson, Samuel Southard, John Berrien, and Levi Woodbury, Charles Richard Vaughan, John C
7.
Pennsylvania Avenue
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Pennsylvania Avenue is a street in Washington, D. C. that connects the White House and the United States Capitol. Called Americas Main Street, it is the location of official parades and processions, moreover, Pennsylvania Avenue is an important commuter route and is part of the National Highway System. The avenue runs for a total of 5.8 miles inside Washington and it continues within the city for 3.5 miles, from the southeast corner of the Capitol grounds through the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and over the Anacostia River on the John Philip Sousa Bridge. At this point, as a highway, it becomes Southern Maryland Boulevard. At one point in the century, Pennsylvania Avenue was designated DC4. Northwest of the White House, Pennsylvania Avenue runs for 1.4 miles to its end at M Street NW in Georgetown, from 1862 to 1962, streetcars ran the length of the avenue from Georgetown to the Anacostia River. Although Pennsylvania Avenue extends six miles within Washington, D. C. the expanse between the White House and the Capitol constitutes the heart of the nation. Washington called this stretch most magnificent & most convenient, and it has served the country well, laid out by Pierre Charles LEnfant, Pennsylvania Avenue was one of the earliest streets constructed in the Federal City. The first reference to the street as Pennsylvania Avenue comes in a 1791 letter from Thomas Jefferson, one theory is that the street was named for Pennsylvania as consolation for moving the capital from Philadelphia. Both Jefferson and George Washington considered the avenue an important feature of the new capital, after inspecting LEnfants plan, President Washington referred to the thoroughfare as a Grand Avenue. Jefferson concurred, and while the avenue was little more than a wide dirt road ridiculed as The Great Serbonian Bog. At one time Pennsylvania Avenue provided an unobstructed view between the White House and the Capitol, the construction of an expansion to the Treasury Building blocked this view, and supposedly President Andrew Jackson did this on purpose. In November 2012, as part of preparations for the inauguration of Barack Obama. On September 30,1965, portions of the avenue and surrounding area were designated the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site, the National Park Service administers this area which includes the United States Navy Memorial, Old Post Office Tower, and Pershing Park. Congress created the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation on October 27,1972 to rehabilitate the street between the Capitol and the White House, an area seen as blighted. In 2010, the District of Columbia designated Pennsylvania Avenue from the terminus of John Philip Sousa Bridge to the Maryland state line to be a D. C. The city spent $430 million to beautify the street and improve the roadway, ever since an impromptu procession formed around Jeffersons second inauguration, every United States president except Ronald Reagan has paraded down the Avenue after taking the oath of office. From William Henry Harrison to Gerald Ford, the funeral corteges of seven of the eight presidents who died in office, franklin Roosevelt was the only president who died in office whose cortege did not follow this route
8.
Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette
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A close friend of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, Lafayette was a key figure in the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830. Born in Chavaniac, in the province of Auvergne in south central France and he followed its martial tradition, and was commissioned an officer at age 13. He became convinced that the American cause in its war was noble. There, he was made a general, however, the 19-year-old was initially not given troops to command. Wounded during the Battle of Brandywine, he managed to organize an orderly retreat. He served with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island, in the middle of the war, he returned home to lobby for an increase in French support. He again sailed to America in 1780, and was given positions in the Continental Army. In 1781, troops in Virginia under his command blocked forces led by Cornwallis until other American, Lafayette returned to France and, in 1787, was appointed to the Assembly of Notables, which was convened in response to the fiscal crisis. He was elected a member of the Estates-General of 1789, where representatives met from the three orders of French society—the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. He helped write the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, after the storming of the Bastille, Lafayette was appointed commander-in-chief of the National Guard and tried to steer a middle course through the French Revolution. In August 1792, the radical factions ordered his arrest, fleeing through the Austrian Netherlands, he was captured by Austrian troops and spent more than five years in prison. Lafayette returned to France after Napoleon Bonaparte secured his release in 1797, after the Bourbon Restoration of 1814, he became a liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies, a position he held for most of the remainder of his life. During Frances July Revolution of 1830, Lafayette declined an offer to become the French dictator, instead, he supported Louis-Philippe as king, but turned against him when the monarch became autocratic. Lafayette died on 20 May 1834, and is buried in Picpus Cemetery in Paris, for his accomplishments in the service of both France and the United States, he is sometimes known as The Hero of the Two Worlds. Lafayettes lineage was likely one of the oldest and most distinguished in Auvergne and, perhaps, males of the Lafayette family enjoyed a reputation for courage and chivalry and were noted for their contempt for danger. One of Lafayettes early ancestors, Gilbert de Lafayette III, a Marshal of France, had been a companion-at-arms of Joan of Arcs army during the Siege of Orléans in 1429, according to legend, another ancestor acquired the crown of thorns during the Sixth Crusade. Lafayettes father likewise died on the battlefield, on 1 August 1759, Michel de Lafayette was struck by a cannonball while fighting a British-led coalition at the Battle of Minden in Westphalia. Lafayette became marquis and Lord of Chavaniac, but the estate went to his mother, in 1768, when Lafayette was 11, he was summoned to Paris to live with his mother and great-grandfather at the comtes apartments in Luxembourg Palace
9.
American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
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