• The White House has also been known as "The People's House," "President's Palace," and "Executive Mansion."
• The first residents of the White House were President John Adams and his wife, Abigail--in 1800.
• The White House has 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and 6 levels in the Residence.  There are 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases, and 3 elevators. The White House requires 570 gallons of paint to cover its outside surface.   For further information we suggest you visit www.whitehouse.gov.

• The U.S. Capitol initially housed not only the Congress but also the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court (1810-1860), the district courts, and other offices.  For further information we suggest you visit www.aoc.gov.   aoc stands for The Architect of the Capitol.
• Construction of the Capitol began in 1793.
• There are three House Office Buildings:  Cannon, Longworth, Rayburn, and  three Senate Office Buildings:  Russell, Dirksen, Hart.
• In 1791 President George Washington selected the area that is now the District of Columbia from land ceded by The State of Maryland.
• The bronze Statue of Freedom on top of  the dome of the U.S. Capitol stands 19 feet 6 inches tall and weighs approximately 15,000 pounds.
• Capitol Hill was formerly known as Jenkins Hill.

• The Lincoln Memorial has 36 columns representing the number of states at the time of his death.

Get your own miniature version of the Lincoln Statue! Only $20.00. Click Photo To Buy Your Own!.

                           Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address                      

   At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first.  Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper.  Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the enerergies [sic] of the nation, little that is new could be presented.  The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all.  With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

  On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war.  All dreaded it--all sought to avert it.  White the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissol[v]e the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.  Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.  And the war came.

  One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it.  These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest.  All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.  To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.  Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained.  Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease.  Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.  Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.  It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their breach from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged.  The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.  The Almighty has His own purposes.  "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh."  If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, that that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from this divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?  Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.  Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."

  With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peach, among ourselves, and with all nations.

[Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address was the second shortest Presidential Inauguration speech.  March 4, 1865]

• The Japanese Cherry Trees around the Tidal Basin were given to the U.S. by Japan in 1912.

"Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky.
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh."
-Taps