1.
United States Capitol
–
The United States Capitol, often called the Capitol Building or Capitol Hill, is the home of the United States Congress, and the seat of the legislative branch of the U. S. federal government. It sits atop Capitol Hill at the end of the National Mall in Washington. Though not at the center of the Federal District, the Capitol forms the origin point for the Districts street-numbering system. The original building was completed in 1800 and was subsequently expanded, like the principal buildings of the executive and judicial branches, the Capitol is built in a distinctive neoclassical style and has a white exterior. Both its east and west elevations are referred to as fronts, though only the east front was intended for the reception of visitors. In 2014, scaffolding was erected around the dome for a project scheduled to be completed by early 2017. All exterior scaffolding was removed by the end of summer 2016, prior to establishing the nations capital in Washington, D. C. the United States Congress and its predecessors had met in Philadelphia, New York City, and a number of other locations. In September 1774, the First Continental Congress brought together delegates from the colonies in Philadelphia, followed by the Second Continental Congress, 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, and met in Annapolis, Maryland, the United States Congress was established upon ratification of the United States Constitution and formally began on March 4,1789. New York City remained home to Congress until July 1790, when the Residence Act was passed to pave the way for a permanent capital. As part of the legislation, Philadelphia was chosen as a capital for ten years, until the nations capital in Washington. Pierre Charles LEnfant was given the task of creating the city plan for the new capital city, in reviewing LEnfants plan, Thomas Jefferson insisted the legislative building be called the Capitol rather than Congress House. The word Capitol comes from Latin and is associated with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Capitoline Hill, the connection between the two is not, however, crystal clear. In spring 1792, United States Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson proposed a competition to solicit designs for the Capitol and the Presidents House. The prize for the competition was $500 and a lot in the Federal City, the most promising of the submissions was by Stephen Hallet, a trained French architect. However, Hallets designs were overly fancy, with too much French influence, a late entry by amateur architect William Thornton was submitted on January 31,1793, to much praise for its Grandeur, Simplicity, and Beauty by Washington, along with praise from Thomas Jefferson. Thornton was inspired by the east front of the Louvre, as well as the Paris Pantheon for the portion of the design
2.
Washington, D.C.
–
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
3.
Tip O'Neill
–
The only Speaker to serve for five complete consecutive Congresses, he is the third longest-serving Speaker in American history after Sam Rayburn and Henry Clay. ONeill was the third of three born to Thomas Phillip ONeill Sr. and Rose Ann ONeill in the Irish middle-class area of North Cambridge, Massachusetts. His mother died when he was nine months old, and he was raised largely by a French-Canadian housekeeper until his father remarried when he was eight. ONeill Sr. started out as a bricklayer, but later won a seat on the Cambridge City Council and was appointed Superintendent of Sewers, during his childhood, ONeill received the nickname Tip after the Canadian baseball player James Tip ONeill. From there he went to Boston College, from which he graduated in 1936, ONeill first became active in politics at 15, campaigning for Al Smith in his 1928 presidential campaign. Four years later, he helped campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a senior at Boston College, ONeill ran for a seat on the Cambridge City Council, but lost, his first race and only electoral defeat. The campaign taught him the lesson that became his best-known quote, ONeill was an absolute, unrepentant, unreconstructed New Deal Democrat, Farrell wrote. In 1949, he became the first Democratic Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in its history and he remained in that post until 1952, when he ran for the United States House of Representatives from his home district. ONeill was elected to the seat vacated by Senator-elect John F. Kennedy in 1952. He would be reelected 16 more times, never facing serious opposition and his district, centered around the northern half of Boston, was originally numbered as the 11th District, but became the 8th District in 1963. After wrestling with the surrounding the Vietnam War, in 1967 ONeill broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson. ONeill wrote in his autobiography that he became convinced that the conflict in Vietnam was a civil war. While the decision cost ONeill some support among voters in his home district, he benefited from new support among students. In 1971, ONeill was appointed Majority Whip in the House, two years later, in 1973, he was elected House Majority Leader, following the disappearance of a small plane carrying Majority Leader Hale Boggs and Congressman Nick Begich in Alaska. As Majority Leader, ONeill was the most prominent Democrat in the House to call for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon in light of the Watergate scandal. As a result of the Tongsun Park influence-peddling scandal, House Speaker Carl Albert retired from Congress and ONeill was elected Speaker in 1977, the same year Jimmy Carter became President. The Democrats, however, lacked party discipline, and while the Carter administration and ONeill started out strong with the passage of ethics and energy packages in 1977, ONeill was also put off by Carters frugal behavior in cutting executive staff and reducing the scale of White House entertaining. Carter, a Southern Baptist, even ended the practice of serving alcohol at the White House
4.
United States House of Representatives
–
The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435, the House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof and is traditionally the leader of the controlling party. He or she and other leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conferences. The House meets in the wing of the United States Capitol. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a body in which each state was equally represented. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates, the issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. The House is referred to as the house, with the Senate being the upper house. Both houses approval is necessary for the passage of legislation, the Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, the Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4,1789. The House began work on April 1,1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time, during the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives, However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed. Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery, One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War, the war culminated in the Souths defeat and in the abolition of slavery. Because all southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, the years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Unions victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877, the ensuing era, the Democratic and the Republican Party held majorities in the House at various times. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw an increase in the power of the Speaker of the House
5.
Ford House Office Building
–
The Ford House Office Building is one of the four office buildings containing U. S. House of Representatives staff in Washington, D. C. on Capitol Hill. Instead, it primarily houses committee staff and other offices, including the Architect of the Capitol, prior to the construction of the Ford Building, the site was the home to the Bell School and Zion Wesley Chapel. Construction of the began in 1939 as part of the Works Progress Administration program. The building originally housed the United States Census Bureau from 1940 to 1942, over the years, it was used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to house its Latent Print Unit. Thousands of fingerprint records were housed in the building, requiring manual search techniques to find a match, the unit was one of the first to move to the FBIs J. Edgar Hoover Building upon its completion in 1974. Following the FBIs departure, the building was purchased by the Architect of the Capitol and was renamed House Annex-2, in the late 1980s, the Democratic and Republican parties were each permitted to rename a House Annex building. Ford House Office Building Architect of the Capitol
6.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
–
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States, which simultaneously serves as the nations prime federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the U. S. Department of Justice, Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U. S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, although many of the FBIs functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and the Russian FSB. At an FBI field office, a senior-level FBI officer concurrently serves as the representative of the Director of National Intelligence. Despite its domestic focus, the FBI also maintains a significant international footprint and these overseas offices exist primarily for the purpose of coordination with foreign security services and do not usually conduct unilateral operations in the host countries. The FBI can and does at times carry out secret activities overseas, just as the CIA has a domestic function. The FBI was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation and its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935. The FBI headquarters is the J. Edgar Hoover Building, located in Washington, in the fiscal year 2012, the Bureaus total budget was approximately $8.12 billion. In 1896, the National Bureau of Criminal Identification was founded, the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley created an urgent perception that America was under threat from anarchists. The Departments of Justice and Labor had been keeping records on anarchists for years, the Justice Department had been tasked with the regulation of interstate commerce since 1887, though it lacked the staff to do so. It had made little effort to relieve its staff shortage until the breakage of the Oregon land fraud scandal at approximately the turn of the 20th Century, President Roosevelt instructed Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to organize an autonomous investigative service that would report only to the Attorney General. Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including the Secret Service, for personnel, on May 27,1908, the Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by the Justice Department, citing fears that the new agency would serve as a secret police department. Again at Roosevelts urging, Bonaparte moved to organize a formal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Investigation was created on July 26,1908, after the Congress had adjourned for the summer. Attorney General Bonaparte, using Department of Justice expense funds, hired thirty-four people, including veterans of the Secret Service. Its first Chief was Stanley Finch, Bonaparte notified the Congress of these actions in December 1908. The bureaus first official task was visiting and making surveys of the houses of prostitution in preparation for enforcing the White Slave Traffic Act, or Mann Act, in 1932, the bureau was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation. The following year it was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition, in the same year, its name was officially changed from the Division of Investigation to the present-day Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI. J. Edgar Hoover served as Director from 1924 to 1972, a combined 48 years with the BOI, DOI, Hoover was substantially involved in most major cases and projects that the FBI handled during his tenure
7.
United States House of Representatives Page
–
Pages reported to Chief Pages, commonly referred to as work bosses on the Democratic and Republican sides of the House of Representatives Floor. As was the practice in Middle Ages, pages were used as a service for the four main House Office Buildings as well as inside the Capitol. Pages were nominated by representatives based upon a competitive application process. Congressional Pages had served within the U. S. House of Representatives for almost 180 years, the Senate Page program will continue. Pages serve in one of four terms, a fall semester, a four. Those selected to serve during the period may serve either the summer directly before or directly after their junior year of high school. After completing one session, Pages may be eligible for the subsequent session, based upon merit, prospective House Pages are nominated by a representative or congressional delegate. Pages for the majority party tend to spend the academic year involved in the program, others from the minority party may apply. A Page may be nominated by any representative, regardless of party affiliation or district, candidates must be at least 16 years of age at the time of service, and must serve during either their junior year or during the summer immediately before or after the junior year. Candidates are required to submit high school transcripts as well as information about activities and other criteria, as well as an essay. All final selections for the majority Pages are made by the Speaker of the House and it is a general rule that only one nominee is permitted per representative, except for party leadership. During the 110th Congress, Rep. Anna Eshoo was allowed to appoint a set of twins as Democratic Pages during the summer session. Usually, each group of Pages, typically referred to as a class, Fall and spring classes tend to have between 60 and 72 Pages, while summer session classes are larger, being between 70 and 75 Pages. Thus, not every representative can nominate a Page, during the fall term of the 110th Congress, only 52 Pages were appointed by representatives, making it the smallest Page class in many years. Distribution of Pages slots are 2,1 in the favor of the majority party in the House, however, each party rarely fills all their slots for the school year terms, leaving the minority Page service more shorthanded. Majority Pages will often seek to out their friends on the other side of the aisle with large work-loads. House Pages serving during the school attend the House Page School, located on the attic floor of the Jefferson. Pages are given Library of Congress badges that allow them to access the restricted floor, the school is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools
