Field artillery
Field artillery is a category of mobile artillery used to support armies in the field. These weapons are specialized for mobility, tactical proficiency, short range, long range, long range target engagement; until the early 20th century, field artillery were known as foot artillery, for while the guns were pulled by beasts of burden, the gun crews would march on foot, thus providing fire support to the infantry. This was in contrast to horse artillery, whose emphasis on speed while supporting cavalry units necessitated lighter guns and crews riding on horseback. Whereas horse artillery has been superseded by self-propelled artillery, field artillery has survived to this day both in name and mission, albeit with motor vehicles towing the guns, carrying the crews and transporting the ammunition. Modern artillery has advanced to deployable wheeled and tracked vehicles and precision delivered munitions capable of striking targets at ranges between 15 and 300 kilometers. Field guns – capable of long range fire Gun howitzers – capable of high or low angle fire with a long barrel Howitzers – capable of high angle fire Infantry support guns – directly support infantry units Mortars – weapons that fire projectiles at an angle of over 45 degrees to the horizontal, modern versions being lightweight with fin-stabilized explosive ammunition Mountain guns – lightweight weapons that can be moved through difficult terrain Multiple rocket launchers – mobile rocket artillery launchers Early artillery was unsuited to the battlefield, as the massive pieces could not be moved except in areas that were controlled by the combatant.
Thus, their role was limited to such functions as breaking sieges. Following the beginning of the gunpowder era, the first field artillery came into being as metallurgy allowed thinner cannon barrels to withstand the explosive forces without bursting. However, there was still a serious risk of the constant changes of the battlefield conspiring to leave behind slow-moving artillery units – either on the advance, or more dangerously, in retreat. Artillery units were vulnerable to assault by light cavalry, which were used in this role. Only with a number of further inventions, did the concept of field artillery take off.\ The medieval Ming dynasty Chinese invented mobile battlefield artillery during the early part of the fourteenth century at the time when gunpowder and the primordial cannon were first being adopted in the West. One of the earliest documented uses of field artillery is found in the 14th-century Ming Dynasty treatise Huolongjing; the text describes a Chinese cannon called a "thousand ball thunder cannon", manufactured of bronze and fastened with wheels.
The book describes another mobile form of artillery called a "barbarian attacking cannon" consisting of a cannon attached to a two-wheel carriage. Before World War I, field artillery batteries fired directly at visible targets measured in distances of meters and yards. Today, modern field batteries measure targets in kilometers and miles and do not directly engage the enemy with observed direct fire; the hundredfold increase in the range of artillery guns in the 20th century has been the result of development of rifled cannons, improvements in propellants, better communications between observer and gunner, technical improvements in gunnery computational abilities. Most field artillery situations require indirect fire due to weather, night-time conditions, distance, or other obstacles; these gunners can rely upon a trained artillery observer called a forward observer, who sees the target and relays the coordinates of the target to their fire direction center, which in turn translates those coordinates into: a left-right aiming direction.
Modern field artillery has three distinct sections: All batteries have a Fire Support Man, Fire Direction Control, Cannoners. The FOs are forward with the infantry where they can Call For Fire upon them, they call the FDC on the radio and transmit a request for fire in the format of CFF. The FDC send a deflection and elevation to the gun line; the gun line cranks the specified elevation and deflection on the howitzers, punch the artillery shell followed by the bag. Depending on the CFF, the gunline will fire the round when they are ready or when the FO calls and tells them to fire; the FO spots the round and sends a correction back to the FDC and the process starts all over again until its done. The batteries are many kilometres behind the FLOT, they plan a location where they can be Fire Capability for some certain amount of time and do multiple fire missions before needing to displace. In normal operations the FOs transmits the CFF to the FDCs, they can calculate "defensive fire" tasks. These are pre‑planned missions just in front of or upon one's own positions, designed with the intention of either suppressing potential attacks, or in dropping fire on a abandoned or overrun position to prevent the enemy from consolidating there.
Because the calculations have been done, the fire can be called down quickly when it is needed. The advance party consists of the battery commander, his driver, first sergeant, gu
Paris
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with an area of 105 square kilometres and an official estimated population of 2,140,526 residents as of 1 January 2019. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, commerce, fashion and the arts; the City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the Île-de-France, or Paris Region, which has an estimated official 2019 population of 12,213,364, or about 18 percent of the population of France. The Paris Region had a GDP of €681 billion in 2016, accounting for 31 percent of the GDP of France, was the 5th largest region by GDP in the world. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second most expensive city in the world, after Singapore, ahead of Zurich, Hong Kong and Geneva. Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on a par with Singapore and Hong-Kong, in 2018; the city is a major rail and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly.
Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily, is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, the first located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2018, with 10.2 million visitors. The Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, the Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe; the historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site. Popular landmarks in the centre of the city include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, both on the Île de la Cité. Paris received 23 million visitors in 2017, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors coming from the United States, the UK, Germany and China.
It was ranked as the third most visited travel destination in the world in 2017, after Bangkok and London. The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris; the 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics; the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the 1960, 1984, 2016 UEFA European Championships were held in the city and, every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes there. The name "Paris" is derived from the Celtic Parisii tribe; the city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. Paris is referred to as the City of Light, both because of its leading role during the Age of Enlightenment and more because Paris was one of the first large European cities to use gas street lighting on a grand scale on its boulevards and monuments.
Gas lights were installed on the Place du Carousel, Rue de Rivoli and Place Vendome in 1829. By 1857, the Grand boulevards were lit. By the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps. Since the late 19th century, Paris has been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in French as Parisiens, they are pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité; the Parisii minted their own coins for that purpose. The Romans began their settlement on Paris' Left Bank; the Roman town was called Lutetia. It became a prosperous city with a forum, temples, an amphitheatre. By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that would become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum "Montmartre", from where he walked headless to the north of the city.
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île-de-la-Citie failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris' strategic importance—with its bridges prevent
Beaux-Arts architecture
Beaux-Arts architecture was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but incorporated Gothic and Renaissance elements, used modern materials, such as iron and glass, it was an important style in France until the end of the 19th century. It had a strong influence on architecture in the United States, because of the many prominent American architects who studied at the Beaux-Arts, including Henry Hobson Richardson, John Galen Howard, Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan; the "Beaux Arts" style evolved from the French classicism of the Style Louis XIV, French neoclassicism beginning with Louis XV and Louis XVI. French architectural styles before the French Revolution were governed by Académie royale d'architecture following the French Revolution, by the Architecture section of the Académie des Beaux-Arts; the Academy held the competition for the "Grand Prix de Rome" in architecture, which offered prize winners a chance to study the classical architecture of antiquity in Rome.
The formal neoclassicism of the old regime was challenged by four teachers at the Academy, Joseph-Louis Duc, Félix Duban, Henri Labrouste and Léon Vaudoyer, who had studied at the French Academy in Rome at the end of the 1820s, They wanted to break away from the strict formality of the old style by introducing new models of architecture from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Their goal was to create an authentic French style based on French models, their work was aided beginning in 1837 by the creation of the Commission of Historic Monuments, headed by the writer and historian Prosper Mérimée, by the great interest in the Middle Ages caused by the publication in 1831 of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo. Their declared intention was to "imprint upon our architecture a national character."The style referred to as Beaux-Arts in English reached the apex of its development during the Second Empire and the Third Republic that followed. The style of instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without major interruption until 1968.
The Beaux-Arts style influenced the architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920. In contrast, many European architects of the period 1860–1914 outside France gravitated away from Beaux-Arts and towards their own national academic centers. Owing to the cultural politics of the late 19th century, British architects of Imperial classicism followed a somewhat more independent course, a development culminating in Sir Edwin Lutyens's New Delhi government buildings; the Beaux-Arts training emphasized the mainstream examples of Imperial Roman architecture between Augustus and the Severan emperors, Italian Renaissance, French and Italian Baroque models but the training could be applied to a broader range of models: Quattrocento Florentine palace fronts or French late Gothic. American architects of the Beaux-Arts generation returned to Greek models, which had a strong local history in the American Greek Revival of the early 19th century. For the first time, repertories of photographs supplemented meticulous scale drawings and on-site renderings of details.
Beaux-Arts training made great use of clasps that link one architectural detail to another. Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production of quick conceptual sketches finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention to the program, knowledgeable detailing. Site considerations tended toward urbane contexts. All architects-in-training passed through the obligatory stages—studying antique models, constructing analos, analyses reproducing Greek or Roman models, "pocket" studies and other conventional steps—in the long competition for the few desirable places at the Académie de France à Rome with traditional requirements of sending at intervals the presentation drawings called envois de Rome. Beaux-Arts architecture depended on sculptural decoration along conservative modern lines, employing French and Italian Baroque and Rococo formulas combined with an impressionistic finish and realism. In the façade shown above, Diana grasps the cornice she sits on in a natural action typical of Beaux-Arts integration of sculpture with architecture.
Overscaled details, bold sculptural supporting consoles, rich deep cornices and sculptural enrichments in the most bravura finish the client could afford gave employment to several generations of architectural modellers and carvers of Italian and Central European backgrounds. A sense of appropriate idiom at the craftsman level supported the design teams of the first modern architectural offices. Characteristics of Beaux-Arts architecture included: Flat roof Rusticated and raised first story Hierarchy of spaces, from "noble spaces"—grand entrances and staircases—to utilitarian ones Arched windows Arched and pedimented doors Classical details: references to a synthesis of historicist styles and a tendency to eclecticism.
Phrygian cap
The Phrygian cap or liberty cap is a soft conical cap with the apex bent over, associated in antiquity with several peoples in Eastern Europe and Anatolia, including Phrygia and the Balkans. In early modern Europe it came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty through a confusion with the pileus, the felt cap of manumitted slaves of ancient Rome. In artistic representations it signifies the pursuit of liberty, it is used in the coat of arms of certain republics or of republican state institutions in the place where otherwise a crown would be used. It thus came to be identified as a symbol of the republican form of government. A number of national personifications, in particular France's Marianne, are depicted wearing the Phrygian cap. By the 4th century BC the Phrygian cap was associated with Phrygian Attis, the consort of Cybele, the cult of which had by become graecified. At around the same time, the cap appears in depictions of the legendary king Midas and other Phrygians in Greek vase-paintings and sculpture.
Such images predate the earliest surviving literary references to the cap. By extension, the Phrygian cap came to be applied to several other non-Greek-speaking peoples as well. Most notable of these extended senses of "Phrygian" were the Trojans and other western Anatolian peoples, who in Greek perception were synonymous with the Phrygians, whose heroes Paris and Ganymede were all depicted with a Phrygian cap. Other Greek earthenware of antiquity depict Amazons and so-called "Scythian" archers with Phrygian caps. Although these are military depictions, the headgear is distinguished from "Phrygian helmets" by long ear flaps, the figures are identified as "barbarians" by their trousers; the headgear appears in 2nd-century BC Boeotian Tanagra figurines of an effeminate Eros, in various 1st-century BC statuary of the Commagene, in eastern Anatolia. Greek representations of Thracians regularly appear with Phrygian caps, most notably Bendis, the Thracian goddess of the moon and the hunt, Orpheus, a legendary Thracian poet and musician.
While the Phrygian cap was of wool or soft leather, in pre-Hellenistic times the Greeks had developed a military helmet that had a characteristic flipped-over tip. These so-called "Phrygian helmets" were of bronze and in prominent use in Thrace, Magna Graecia and the rest of the Hellenistic world from the 5th century BC up to Roman times. Due to their superficial similarity, the cap and helmet are difficult to distinguish in Greek art unless the headgear is identified as a soft flexible cap by long earflaps or a long neck flap. Confusingly similar are the depictions of the helmets used by cavalry and light infantry, whose headgear – aside from the traditional alopekis caps of fox skin – included stiff leather helmets in imitation of the bronze ones; the Greek concept passed to the Romans in its extended sense, thus encompassed not only to Phrygians or Trojans, but the other near-neighbours of the Greeks. On Trajan's Column, which commemorated Trajan's epic wars with the Dacians, the Phrygian cap adorns the heads of Trajan's Dacian prisoners.
The prisoner, accompanying Trajan in the monumental, 3 m tall statue of Trajan in the ancient Turkish city of Laodicea, is wearing a Phrygian Cap. Parthians appear with Phrygian caps in the 2nd-century Arch of Septimius Severus, which commemorates Roman victories over the Parthian Empire. With Phrygians caps, but for Gauls, appear in 2nd-century friezes built into the 4th century Arch of Constantine; the Phrygian cap reappears in figures related to the first to fourth century religion Mithraism. This astrology-centric Roman mystery cult projected itself with pseudo-Oriental trappings in order to distinguish itself from both traditional Roman religion and from the other mystery cults. In the artwork of the cult, the figures of the god Mithras as well as those of his helpers Cautes and Cautopates are depicted with a Phrygian cap; the function of the Phrygian cap in the cult are unknown, but it is conventionally identified as an accessory of its perserie. Early Christian art build on the same Greco-Roman perceptions of Zoroaster and his "Magi" as experts in the arts of astrology and magic, depict the "three wise men" with Phrygian caps.
In late Republican Rome, a soft felt cap called the pileus served as a symbol of freemen, was symbolically given to slaves upon manumission, thereby granting them not only their personal liberty, but libertas— freedom as citizens, with the right to vote. Following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, Brutus and his co-conspirators instrumentalized this symbolism of the pileus to signify the end of Caesar's dictatorship and a return to the republican system; these Roman associations of the pileus with liberty and republicanism were carried forward to the 18th-century, when the pileus was confused with the Phrygian cap, with the Phrygian cap becoming a symbol of those values. In revolutionary FranceIn 1675, the anti-tax and anti-nobility Stamp-Paper revolt erupted in Brittany and north-western France, where it became known as the bonnets rouges uprising after the blue or red caps worn by the insurgents. Although the insurgents are not known to have preferr
The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777
The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777 is the title of an oil painting by the American artist John Trumbull depicting the death of the American General Hugh Mercer at the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777 during the American Revolutionary War. The painting was Trumbull’s first depiction of an American victory, it is one of a series of historical paintings on the war, which includes the Declaration of Independence and The Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, December 26, 1776. The artist expressed his great admiration for General George Washington in this painting as he wrote in the catalogue for his exhibited works at Yale University in 1835: Thus, in the short space of nine days, an extensive country, an entire State, was wrested from the hands of a victorious enemy, superior in numbers, in arms and in discipline, by the wisdom and energy of one great mind, it was a personal favorite of Trumbull himself. When asked by Benjamin Silliman which paintings he would save from destruction in the Trumbull Gallery at Yale, he said this one.
Trumbull used Hugh Jr. as a model for the painting. The picture displays several different events of the battle. At the center, American General Hugh Mercer, with his dead horse beneath him, is shown mortally wounded. Mercer was commanding the leading division of the Continental Army when attacked by British Colonel Charles Mawhood near Princeton, New Jersey. Mercer's horse was killed and he was attacked by two grenadiers; the British were in control of the battle at this moment. Mercer would be treated for his wounds by Dr. Benjamin Rush the next day, January 4, but died on January 12 as a result, Dr. Rush believed, of a concussion caused by a musket butt to the headAt the left, American Daniel Neil is shown bayoneted against a cannon. At the right, British Captain William Leslie is shown mortally wounded. Leslie died during the battle and was put on a wagon by the British, taken by the Americans. Rush learned of his death on January 4, he would be buried at Pluckemin, New Jersey the next day, January 5.
In the background, American General George Washington and Dr. Benjamin Rush enter the scene. After Mercer became a casualty, Washington needed to lead the charge to overtake Mawhood's troops and win the battle. On the far left, American General Thomas Mifflin is shown leading a cavalry charge. American Colonel John Cadwalader and British Colonel Edmund Eyre are depicted. Trumbull worked on this painting for many years and created several sketches and final oil paintings. A collection of sketches is located at the Princeton University Library. A large scale version, painted in 1831, is owned by the Wadsworth Atheneum in Connecticut; the Yale University Art Gallery owns an unfinished version dated c. 1786–c. 1788. Battle of Trenton "The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777". Yale University Art Gallery. "The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777,". Inventory of American Sculpture, Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
IAP 07260646. Owner: Yale University Art Gallery Sizer, Theodore. "Trumbull's The Battle of Princeton". The Princeton University Library Chronicle. XII: 1–5
George Washington
George Washington was an American political leader, military general and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. He led Patriot forces to victory in the nation's War of Independence, he presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 which established the new federal government, he has been called the "Father of His Country" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the new nation. Washington received his initial military training and command with the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and was named a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he was appointed Commanding General of the nation's Continental Army. Washington allied with France, in the defeat of the British at Yorktown. Once victory for the United States was in hand in 1783, Washington resigned his commission. Washington played a key role in the adoption and ratification of the Constitution and was elected president by the Electoral College in the first two elections.
He implemented a strong, well-financed national government while remaining impartial in a fierce rivalry between cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. During the French Revolution, he proclaimed a policy of neutrality while sanctioning the Jay Treaty, he set enduring precedents for the office of president, including the title "President of the United States", his Farewell Address is regarded as a pre-eminent statement on republicanism. Washington utilized slave labor and trading African American slaves, but he became troubled with the institution of slavery and freed them in his 1799 will, he was a member of the Anglican Church and the Freemasons, he urged tolerance for all religions in his roles as general and president. Upon his death, he was eulogized as "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." He has been memorialized by monuments, geographical locations and currency, many scholars and polls rank him among the top American presidents. Washington's great-grandfather John Washington immigrated in 1656 from Sulgrave, England to the British Colony of Virginia where he accumulated 5,000 acres of land, including Little Hunting Creek on the Potomac River.
George Washington was born February 22, 1732 at Popes Creek in Westmoreland County and was the first of six children of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington. His father was a justice of the peace and a prominent public figure who had three additional children from his first marriage to Jane Butler; the family moved to Little Hunting Creek to Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia. When Augustine died in 1743, Washington inherited ten slaves. Washington did not have the formal education that his older brothers received at Appleby Grammar School in England, but he did learn mathematics and surveying, he was talented in draftsmanship and map-making. By early adulthood, he was writing with "considerable force" and "precision."Washington visited Mount Vernon and Belvoir, the plantation that belonged to Lawrence's father-in-law William Fairfax, which fueled ambition for the lifestyle of the planter aristocracy. Fairfax became Washington's patron and surrogate father, Washington spent a month in 1748 with a team surveying Fairfax's Shenandoah Valley property.
He received a surveyor's license the following year from the College of Mary. He resigned from the job in 1750 and had bought 1,500 acres in the Valley, he owned 2,315 acres by 1752. In 1751, Washington made his only trip abroad when he accompanied Lawrence to Barbados, hoping that the climate would cure his brother's tuberculosis. Washington contracted smallpox during that trip, which immunized him but left his face scarred. Lawrence died in 1752, Washington leased Mount Vernon from his widow. Lawrence's service as adjutant general of the Virginia militia inspired Washington to seek a commission, Virginia's Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie appointed him as a major in December 1752 and as commander of one of the four militia districts; the British and French were competing for control of the Ohio Valley at the time, the British building forts along the Ohio River and the French doing between Lake Erie and the Ohio River. In October 1753, Dinwiddie appointed Washington as a special envoy to demand that the French vacate territory which the British had claimed.
Dinwiddie appointed him to make peace with the Iroquois Confederacy and to gather intelligence about the French forces. Washington met with Half-King Tanacharison and other Iroquois chiefs at Logstown to secure their promise of support against the French, his party reached the Ohio River in November, they were intercepted by a French patrol and escorted to Fort Le Boeuf where Washington was received in a friendly manner. He delivered the British demand to vacate to French commander Saint-Pierre, but the French refused to leave. Saint-Pierre gave Washington his official answer in a sealed envelope after a few days' delay, he gave Washington's party food and extra winter clothing for the trip back to Virginia. Washington completed the precarious mission in 77 days in difficult winter conditions and achieved a measure of distinction when his report was published in Virginia and London. In February 1754, Dinwiddie promoted Washington to lieutenant colonel and second-in-command of the 300-strong Virginia R
Columbia (name)
Columbia is the personification of the United States. It was a historical name used to describe the Americas and the New World, it has given rise to the names of many persons, objects and companies. Images of the Statue of Liberty displaced personified Columbia as the female symbol of the United States by around 1920, although Lady Liberty was seen as an aspect of Columbia; the District of Columbia is named after the personification, as is the traditional patriotic hymn "Hail Columbia", the official vice presidential anthem of the United States Vice President. Columbia is a New Latin toponym in use since the 1730s for the Thirteen Colonies, it originated from the name of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and from the ending -ia, common in Latin names of countries. Massachusetts Chief Justice Samuel Sewall used the name Columbina for the New World in 1697; the name Columbia for America first appeared in 1738 in the weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament in Edward Cave's The Gentleman's Magazine.
Publication of Parliamentary debates was technically illegal, so the debates were issued under the thin disguise of Reports of the Debates of the Senate of Lilliput and fictitious names were used for most individuals and placenames found in the record. Most of these were transparent anagrams or similar distortions of the real names and some few were taken directly from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels while a few others were classical or neoclassical in style; such were Ierne for Ireland, Iberia for Spain, Noveborac for New York and Columbia for America—at the time used in the sense of "European colonies in the New World". By the time of the Revolution, the name Columbia had lost the comic overtone of its Lilliputian origins and had become established as an alternative, or poetic name for America. While the name America is scanned with four syllables, according to 18th-century rules of English versification Columbia was scanned with three, more metrically convenient. For instance, the name appears in a collection of complimentary poems written by Harvard graduates in 1761 on the occasion of the marriage and coronation of King George III.
Behold, Britannia! in thy favour'd Isle. View thy Prince, For ancestors renowned, for virtues more. A ship built in Massachusetts in 1773 received the name Columbia Rediviva and it became famous as an exploring ship and lent its name to new Columbias. No serious consideration was given to using the name Columbia as an official name for the independent United States, but with independence the name became popular and was given to many counties and towns as well as other institutions. In 1784, the former King's College in New York City had its name changed to Columbia College, which became the nucleus of the present-day Ivy League Columbia University. In 1786, South Carolina gave the name Columbia to its new capital city. Columbia is the name of at least nineteen other towns in the United States. In 1791, three commissioners appointed by President George Washington named the area destined for the seat of the United States government the Territory of Columbia, it was subsequently organized as the District of Columbia.
In 1792, the Columbia Rediviva sailing ship gave its name to the Columbia River in the American Northwest In 1798, Joseph Hopkinson wrote lyrics for Philip Phile's 1789 inaugural "President's March" under the new title of "Hail, Columbia". Once used as de facto national anthem of the United States, it is now used as the entrance march of the Vice President of the United States. In 1821 citizens of Boone County, Missouri chose the name for their new city of Columbia, Missouri In 1865 Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon, the spacecraft to the moon was fired from a giant Columbiad cannon. In part, the more frequent usage of the name Columbia reflected a rising American neoclassicism, exemplified in the tendency to use Roman terms and symbols; the selection of the eagle as the national bird, the heraldric use of the eagle, the use of the term Senate to describe the upper house of Congress and the naming of Capitol Hill and the Capitol building were all conscious evocations of Roman precedents.
The adjective Columbian has been used to mean "of or from the United States of America", for instance in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago, Illinois. It has been proposed as an alternative word for American. Columbian should not be confused with the adjective pre-Columbian, referring to a time period before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492; as a quasi-mythical figure, Columbia first appears in the poetry of African-American Phillis Wheatley starting in 1776 during the revolutionary war. In the 19th century, Columbia was visualized as a goddess-like female national personification of the United States and of liberty itself, comparable to the British Britannia, the Italian Italia Turrita and the French Marianne seen in political cartoons of the 19th and early 20th century; this personification was sometimes called Miss Columbia. Such iconography personified America in the form of an Indian queen or Native American princess; the image of the personified Columbia was never fixed, but she was most presented as a woman between youth and middl
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