:: wikimiki.org ::

Washington Meridian

Washington meridian

The Washington meridian was one of four prime meridians of the United States which passed through Washington, D.C.. The four which have been specified are: # through the Capitol # through the White House # through the old Naval Observatory # through the new Naval Observatory. Their longitudes may be reported in three ways: # relative to the local vertical used by astronomic observations # relative to NAD 27 (North American Datum 1927), an ellipsoid of revolution tangent to mean sea level at triangulation station Meade's Ranch, Kansas (not earth-centered); # relative to NAD 83, an earth-centered ellipsoid of revolution whose dimensions are chosen to minimize the undulations of the geoid (world-wide mean sea level; to less than 100 m).

Capitol

Pierre Charles L'Enfant specified the first meridian in 1791 on his street plan for the new Seat of Government of the United States. He stated that the meridian of the Congress House, now called the Capitol, would be 0°0'. The center of its dome (completed in 1863 during the Civil War) was recently measured by the National Geodetic Survey to be 77°0'21.9"W (NAD 83).

White House

L'Enfant planned Washington around a right triangle, having its 90° vertex at the Washington Monument, its eastern vertex at the Congress House, and its northern vertex at the President's House, now called the White House. The west side of L'Enfant's triangle forms a natural prime meridian passing through the President's House. The following five features on this meridian are listed from south to north. In 1793, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson surveyed and marked with a wooden post the southwest vertex of L'Enfant's triangle, establishing the second Washington meridian, the one through the President's House. The wooden post was replaced by the Jefferson Pier in 1804, while Jefferson was President of the United States. After removal and replacement several times, it was permanently replaced in 1889 by a two foot (0.7 m) square, two foot tall granite pier, now 119 m WNW of the center of the Washington Monument. Its longitude is 77°2'11.56"W (NAD 83). In 1890, the Meridian Stone was placed at the center of the Ellipse on the same meridian. It is an 18 inch (45 cm) square granite post set flush with the ground. In 1923, the Zero Milestone was placed on the same meridian on the north side of the Ellipse, intended to represent the zero mileage point for all United States roads. It is a granite pillar about 18 inches (45 cm) square and about 3.5 feet (1 m) tall. The most prominent feature on this Washington meridian (besides the White House) is 16th Street, which extends due north from the White House. The last feature on this meridian no longer exists. It was a small freestone obelisk placed in 1804 on top of a hill 1.5 miles (2.5 km) north of the President's House, hence the name Meridian Hill. It was at the northern end of 16th Street, north of Florida Avenue, before 16th Street was extended northward soon after 1900, covering it up. Now adjoining the east side of 16th Street where the obelisk once stood is Meridian Hill Park.

Old Naval Observatory

The third meridian was defined on 28 September 1850 by Congress: "[T]he meridian of the observatory at Washington shall be adopted and used as the American meridian for all astronomical purposes, and … the meridian of Greenwich shall be adopted for all nautical purposes." (9 Statutes at Large 515) The observatory decided that this meridian passed through the center of the original (small) dome atop the main building of the Old Naval Observatory, now on the grounds of the United States Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, southwest of the corner of E and 23rd Streets in Foggy Bottom (north of the Lincoln Memorial and west of the White House). The observatory adopted 77°2'48.0"W for its meridian in the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac for the years 1855 to 1869 (as 5^h8^m11.2^s). In 1897, well after the observatory closed in 1892, the Coast and Geodetic Survey reported that its meridian was 77°3'2.3" west of Greenwich (3618 Serial Set 254), which was quoted for the next 50 years in the list of observatories in the Almanac (as 5^h8^m12.15^s). When referred to later datums, this meridian has been variously specified as 77°3'6.119"W or 77°3'6.276"W (both presumably NAD 27). The first would be 77°3'5.037"W (NAD 83). This meridian was repealed by Congress on 22 August 1912 to allow the Greenwich meridian to become the legal prime meridian of the United States.

Western state borders

Many western states have borders that are meridians of "longitude west of Washington", that is, west of the legal 1850 meridian through the Old Naval Observatory. However, their present boundaries follow the subsequently surveyed boundary, even if it was inaccurately marked a few miles (kilometres) east or west of the meridian in the statute. Other western states have meridians relative to Greenwich (Alaska, California, Oklahoma, Texas) or relative to a river or lake (Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Washington). The following meridians west of Washington are listed east to west, along with the appropriate boundary of the present state. The date of the meridian's definition is in parentheses (all in the 1860s). All states were territories of the same name when their meridians were specified except as noted. States without dates (and only dittoed degrees) have boundaries dependent on the neighboring state with a date listed immediately above it.

New Naval Observatory

The fourth meridian was through the clock room of the new Naval Observatory, 2.3 miles (3.8 km) northwest of the White House, at 77°3'56.7"W (1897) or 77°4'2.24"W (NAD 27) or 77°4'1.16"W (NAD 83). The clock room is a small building at the exact center of the 1000 foot (305 m) radius observatory grounds, whose northern entrance is at 34th Street and Massachusetts Avenue. It was used in the Almanac for the years 1898–1950 as the independent variable of time for a few tables (even though Washington's civil time since 1883 had been that of the standard time zone GMT − 5 hours (75°W)).

References

- Joseph Hyde Pratt, "American Prime Meridians", Geographical Review" 32 (1942) 233-244.
- Franklin K. Van Zandt, Boundaries of the United States and the several states, Geological Survey Professional Paper 909 (1976)
- American ephemeris and nautical almanac (Washington, DC: annual), preface and observatories
See also

- Washington mean time
External links

- [http://www.savethemall.org/mall/resource-hist02.html The 1791 L'Enfant plan and the Mall]
- [http://www.exploredc.org/index.php?id=3 Map of L'Enfant's Plan]
- [http://geodesy.noaa.gov/PUBS_LIB/WashMon.pdf Washington Monument GPS Project] including Jefferson Pier and Zero Milestone (1.29 MB)
- [http://terraserver.microsoft.com/addressimage.aspx?t=4&s=9&lon=-77.0513873533333&lat=38.89503269&alon=-77&alat=38 Old Naval Observatory] Old dome at center, 23rd Street at right.
- [http://www.labbey.com/Telescopes/Washington.html Washington Refractor] describing present condition of Old Naval Observatory
- [http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/INFO/Washmon/info.htm Washington Monument GPS Height Modernization Project] listing coordinates of Jefferson Pier, Meridian Stone, and Zero Milestone (click on names for photos) Category:Lines of longitude

Meridian (geography)
:This article is about the geographical concept. For other uses of the word, see Meridian. Meridian On the Earth, a meridian is an imaginary north-south line between the North Pole and the South Pole that connects all locations with a given longitude. The position on the meridian is given by the latitude. Each is perpendicular to all circles of latitude at the intersection points. Each is also the same size and is half of a great circle on the Earth's surface. Considering the meridian that passes through Greenwich, England, as establishing the meaning of zero degrees of longitude, or the Prime Meridian, any other meridian is identified by the angle, referenced to the center of the earth as vertex, between where it and the prime meridian cross the equator. As there are 360 degrees in a circle, the meridian on the opposite side of the earth from Greenwich (which forms the other half of a circle with the one through Greenwich) is 180° longitude, and the others lie between 0° and 180° of West longitude in the Western Hemisphere (west of Greenwich) and between 0° and 180° of East longitude in the Eastern Hemisphere (east of Greenwich). You can see the lines of longitude on most maps. The term "meridian" comes from the Latin meridies, meaning "midday"; the sun crosses a given meridian midway between the times of sunrise and sunset on that meridian. The same Latin stem gives rise to the terms A.M. and P.M. used to disambiguate hours of the day when using the 12-hour clock. ----This article originates from Jason Harris' Astroinfo which comes along with KStars, a Desktop Planetarium for Linux/KDE. See http://edu.kde.org/kstars/index.phtml
-

Washington D.C.

Washington, D.C. is the capital city of the United States of America. "D.C." stands for the "District of Columbia", the federal district containing the city of Washington. The city is named for George Washington, military leader of the American Revolution and the first President of the United States. The District of Columbia and the city of Washington are coextensive and are governed by a single municipal government, so for most practical purposes they are considered to be the same entity. It is known locally as the District or simply D.C. Historically, it was called the Federal City. The District of Columbia, founded on July 16, 1790, is a federal district as specified by the United States Constitution with limited—and sometimes contentious—local rule. The District is ruled "in all cases whatsoever" by the U.S. Congress, though its residents have no voting representative in that body. The land forming the original District came from the states of Virginia and Maryland. However, the area south of the Potomac River (39 mi² or about 100 km²) was returned, or "retroceded", to Virginia in 1847 and now is incorporated into Arlington County and the City of Alexandria. The term "District of Columbia" is derived from an old poetic name for the United States, Columbia, which has fallen out of common use since the early 20th century. The centers of all three branches of the U.S. federal government are in Washington, D.C., as well as the headquarters of most federal agencies. Washington also serves as the headquarters for the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organization of American States, among other international (and national) institutions. All of this has made Washington the frequent focal point of massive political demonstrations and protests, particularly on the National Mall. Washington is also the site of numerous national landmarks, museums, and sports teams, and is a popular destination for tourists. The population of the District of Columbia, as of 2003 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, is 563,384. The Greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area includes the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, with a population surpassing 4.7 million. If Washington, D.C. were considered a state, it would rank last in area behind Rhode Island, 50th in population ahead of Wyoming, and 36th in Gross State Product, ahead of 15 states. __TOC__

History

Wyoming map of Washington, D.C.]] A Southern site for the new country's capital was agreed upon at a dinner between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. The initial plan for the "Federal City" was a diamond, ten miles wide on each side, totaling 100 square miles (260 square kilometers). The actual site on the Potomac River was chosen by President Washington. Washington may have chosen the site for its natural scenery, believing the Potomac would become a great navigable waterway. The city was officially named "Washington" on September 9, 1791. Out of modesty, George Washington never referred to it as such, preferring to call it "the Federal City". Despite choosing the site and living nearby at Mount Vernon, he rarely visited. On August 24, 1814, British forces burned the capital during the most notable and destructive raid of the War of 1812. President James Madison and U.S. forces fled before the British forces, who burned public buildings including the Capitol, the Navy Yard, and the Treasury building. The Presidential Mansion was also gutted. James Madison Washington remained a small city of a few thousand permanent residents until the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861. The significant expansion of the federal government to administer the war and its legacies—such as veterans' pensions—led to notable growth in the city's population. In July 1864, Confederate forces under Jubal Anderson Early made a brief raid into Washington, culminating in the Battle of Fort Stevens. The Confederates were repulsed and Early eventually returned to the Shenandoah Valley. The site, now called [http://www.nps.gov/batt/ Battleground National Cemetery] is located near present day Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest Washington. The battle was the only battle where a U.S. President, Lincoln, was present and under enemy fire while in office [http://www.nps.gov/rocr/ftcircle/stevens.htm 1]. In the early 1870s, Washington was given a territorial government, but Governor Alexander Shepherd's reputation for extravagance resulted in Congress abolishing his office in favor of direct rule. Congressional governance of the District would continue for a century. The Washington Monument opened in 1888. Plans were laid to further develop the monumental aspects of the city, with work contributed by such noted figures as Frederick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham. However, development of the Lincoln Memorial and other structures on the National Mall did not begin until the early 20th century. Lincoln Memorial The District's population peaked in 1950, when the census for that year recorded a record population of 802,178 people. At the time, the city was the ninth-largest in the country, ahead of Boston and behind Saint Louis. The population declined in the following decades, mirroring the suburban out-migration of many of the nation's older urban centers following World War II. The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on March 29, 1961, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote for president and have their votes count in the Electoral College. The first 4.6 miles (7.4 kilometers) of the Washington Metro subway system opened on March 27, 1976. Walter Washington became the first elected mayor of the District in 1974. Marion Barry became mayor in 1978, but he was arrested for drug use in an FBI sting on January 18, 1990 and would serve a six-month jail term. His successor, Sharon Pratt Kelly, became the first black woman to lead a city of that size and importance in the U.S. But Barry defeated her in the 1994 primary and was once again elected mayor for his fourth term, during which time the city nearly became insolvent and was forced to give up some home rule to a congressionally-appointed financial control board. On September 29, 2004, Major League Baseball officially relocated the Montreal Expos to Washington for the 2005 season, now named the Washington Nationals, despite opposition from Orioles owner Peter Angelos. A very public back-and-forth between the city council and MLB threatened to scuttle the agreement until December 21, when a plan for a new stadium in Southeast D.C. was finalized. The Nationals will play at R.F.K. Stadium until the new stadium is ready in 2008.

Geography and climate

Geography

2008, 2002. The axes bounding its quadrants radiate from the U.S. Capitol building.]] Washington, D.C. is located at (the coordinates of the Zero Milestone, on The Ellipse). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 177.0 km² (68.3 mi²). 159.0 km² (61.4 mi²) of it is land and 18.0 km² (6.9 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 10.16% water. Washington is surrounded by the states of Virginia (on its southwest side) and Maryland (on its southeast, northeast, and northwest sides); it interrupts those states' common border, which is the Potomac River's southern shore both upstream and downstream from the District. The Potomac River as it passes Washington is virtually entirely within the District of Columbia border. The physical geography of the District of Columbia is very similar to the physical geography of much of Maryland. The District has three major natural flowing bodies of water: the Potomac River, the Anacostia River, and Rock Creek. The Anacostia River and Rock Creek are tributaries of the Potomac River. There are also three man-made reservoirs: Dalecarlia Reservoir, which crosses over the northwest border of the District from Maryland; McMillan Reservoir near Howard University; and Georgetown Reservoir upstream of Georgetown. The highest point in the District of Columbia is 410 feet (125 m) above sea level at Tenleytown. The lowest point is sea level, which occurs along all of the Anacostia shore and all of the Potomac shore except the uppermost mile (the Little Falls - Chain Bridge area). The sea level Tidal Basin rose eleven feet during Hurricane Isabel on September 18, 2003. Geographical features of Washington, D.C. include Theodore Roosevelt Island, Columbia Island, the Three Sisters, and Hains Point.

Climate

Washington's weather is seasonal subtropical with some variations between summer and winter, although it is moderated by its proximity to the coast, making its climate more moderate than cities at a similar latitude further inland. Summer tends to be very hot and humid with daily high temperatures in July and August averaging in the high 80s° to low 90s°F (about 30°C). Spring and fall are mild with high temperatures in April and October averaging in the high 60s°F (about 20°C). Winter can bring cold temperatures and, on some occassions, significant snowfall. While hurricanes (or the remnants of them) occasionally track through the area, they have often weakened by the time they reach Washington. The average annual snowfall is 17 inches (430 mm) and the average high temperature in January is 43°F (6°C); the average low for January is 24°F (−4°C). The highest recorded temperature was 106°F (41°C) on July 20, 1930 and August 6, 1918 and the lowest recorded temperature was −15°F (−26°C) on February 11, 1899. 1899

People and culture

Demographics

As of the 2000 census, there are 572,059 people (2004 estimate: 553,523), 248,338 households, and 114,235 families residing in the city. The population density is 3,597.3/km² (9,316.4/mi²). There are 274,845 housing units at an average density of 1,728.3/km² (4,476.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 60.01% Black or African American, 32.78% White, 2.66% Asian, 0.30% Native American, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 3.84% from other races, and 2.35% from two or more races. 7.86% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race, with Salvadorans being the largest Hispanic group. A plurality of whites are of British ancestry. There are 248,338 households out of which 19.8% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 22.8% are married couples living together, 18.9% have a female householder with no husband present, and 54.0% are non-families. 43.8% of all households are made up of individuals and 10.0% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.16 and the average family size is 3.07. In the city the population is spread out with 20.1% under the age of 18, 12.7% from 18 to 24, 33.1% from 25 to 44, 21.9% from 45 to 64, and 12.2% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 35 years. For every 100 females there are 89.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 86.1 males. The median income for a household in the city is $40,127, and the median income for a family is $46,283. Males have a median income of $40,513 versus $36,361 for females. The per capita income for the city is $28,659. 20.2% of the population and 16.7% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 31.1% of those under the age of 18 and 16.4% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line. As of 2000, 83.2% of Washington, D.C. residents age 5 and older speak English at home and 9.2% speak Spanish. French is the third most spoken language at 1.8%, followed by African languages at 1.0% and Chinese at 0.5%. According to the 2001 [http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf American Religious Identification Survey], nearly three out of four District residents self-identified as Christians. This breaks down to 72% Christian (27% Catholic, 19% Baptist, and 26% as some other form of Protestant), 13% stating no religion, and minor religions including 4% Buddhist, 2% Muslim, and 1% Jewish.

Housing

Due in part to the renewed expansion of the federal government, Washington has experienced a huge housing boom that has seen thousands of units constructed, along with thousands of people moving to the District. While the Census Bureau estimated in 2005 that the District's population will drop to 433,000 by 2030, city officials alleged systemic undercounting and released their own estimate that the District's population will rise to 712,000 by 2030.

Crime

During the violent crime wave of the early 1990s, Washington, D.C. was known as the murder capital of the United States. The number of homicides peaked in 1991 at 482, with violence declining drastically since then. Once plagued with violent crime, many D.C. neighborhoods, such as Columbia Heights, are becoming safe and vibrant areas as a result of gentrification. While not as intensely violent, crime hot spots have since displaced farther into the eastern sections of Washington, D.C. and across the border into Maryland. Although the eastern side of the city has developed a reputation for being unsafe, these crime hot spots are generally concentrated in very specific areas that are associated with drugs and gangs. Other areas east of the U.S. Capitol, as well as the city's wealthier Northwest neighborhoods, experience low levels of crime. Despite the declining trends, Washington D.C. crime rates (2004) remain among the highest of U.S. cities, behind only Camden, New Jersey, Detroit, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, and Gary, Indiana. [http://www.morganquitno.com/cit05pop.htm#25]

Landmarks and museums

Gary, Indiana Washington is home to numerous national landmarks and is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States. The National Mall is a large, open area in the center of the city featuring many monuments to American leaders, as well as connecting the White House and the United States Capitol buildings. Located prominently in the center of the Mall is the Washington Monument. Other notable points of interest near the Mall include the Jefferson Memorial (see right), Lincoln Memorial, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, National World War II Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Albert Einstein Memorial. The world famous Smithsonian Institution, is also located in the District. The Smithsonian today is a collection of museums that includes the Anacostia Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Hirshhorn Museum, National Air and Space Museum, National Museum of American History, National Museum of the American Indian, National Museum of Natural History, National Portrait Gallery, National Postal Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Zoo. There are also many art museums in D.C., in addition to those that are part of the Smithsonian, including the National Gallery of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Corcoran Museum of Art, and the Phillips Collection. The Library of Congress and the National Archives house thousands of documents covering every period in American history. Some of the more notable documents in the National Archives include the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Other points of interest in the District include Arena Stage, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Blair House, Folger Shakespeare Library, Ford's Theatre, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, International Spy Museum, National Building Museum, Old Post Office Building, Theodore Roosevelt Island, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Washington National Cathedral.

Media

Newspaper

The Washington Post is the oldest and most-read daily newspaper in Washington, and has developed into one of the most reputable daily newspapers in the U.S., perhaps most notable for exposing the Watergate Scandal, among other achievements. The daily Washington Times and the free weekly Washington City Paper also have substantial readership in the District. On February 1, 2005 the free daily tabloid Washington Examiner debuted, having been formed from a chain of suburban newspapers known as the Journal Newspapers. The weekly Washington Blade focuses on gay issues, and the Washington Informer on African-American issues. Many neighborhoods in the District have their own small-circulation newspaper, usually published by the neighborhood association on a weekly basis. Some of these papers included the Dupont Current (Dupont Circle), Georgetown Current (Georgetown), In-Towner (Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, & Adams Morgan), Northwest Current (Upper Northwest), the Voice of the Hill, the Hill Rag (Capitol Hill), and East of the River (Anacostia).

Television

The metro area is well served by several local broadcast television stations, and is the eighth largest designated market area in the U.S., with 2,252,550 homes (2.04% of the U.S. population). Major television network affiliates include WUSA 9 (CBS), WJLA 7 (ABC), WRC 4, (NBC), WTTG 5 (Fox), WBDC 50 (WB), WDCA 20 (UPN), as well as WETA 26 and WHUT 32 (PBS) stations. Channels 4, 5, 20, and 50 are owned by the networks themselves. Public Access on Cable Television is also provided by the Public Access Corporation of the District of Columbia on two channels simulcast to both local cable TV Systems. One channel is devoted to religious programming and the other channel provides a diversity of offerings. Several cable television networks have their headquarters in the Washington area including C-SPAN on Capitol Hill, Black Entertainment Television (BET) in Northeast Washington, and Discovery Communications in Silver Spring, Maryland. Major national broadcasters and cable outlets including NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and CNN also maintain a significant presence in Washington, as do those from around the world including the BBC, CBC, and Al Jazeera.

Radio

Al Jazeera There are also several major radio stations serving the metro area, with a wide variety of musical interests. Rock stations include WARW 94.7 FM (classic rock), WIHT 99.5 FM (top 40), WWDC, 101.1 FM (alternative rock), and WWZZ 104.1 FM (alternative rock). Urban stations include WPGC 95.5 FM (Rhythmic CHR/Mainstream Urban), WHUR 96.3 FM (student-run Howard University Urban AC station), WMMJ 102.3FM (Urban AC), WKYS 93.9 FM (Mainstream Urban), and Radio CPR 97.5 FM (a popular pirate radio station broadcasting the area around Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan, and Columbia Heights). Stations that concentrate on talk and sports include WJFK 106.7 FM, WMAL 630 AM (conservative), WPGC 1580 AM (Urban Gospel), WTEM 980 AM (sports talk), and WTOP 1500 AM (all news). There are also two NPR affiliates: WAMU 88.5 FM (usual NPR programs, community programming, and BBC news) and WETA 90.9 FM (round-the-clock news/analysis, broadcasting shows originating mainly from NPR, PRI, and BBC). Other stations include WASH 97.1 FM (adult contemporary), WMZQ 98.7 FM (country music), WLZL 99.1 FM (Latin/Hispanic), WGMS 103.5 FM (classical music), WPFW 89.3 FM (jazz and progressive talk), WJZW 105.9 FM (smooth jazz), and WRQX 107.3 FM (adult contemporary). XM Satellite Radio and National Public Radio are based in Washington. The Voice of America, the U.S. government's international broadcasting service, is also headquartered in Washington.

Performing arts

There are a number of venues for the performing arts in the city. Arena Stage, one of the first not-for-profit regional theaters in the nation, is rich with history and produces an eight-show season ranging from classics to world premieres, dedicated to the American canon of theater. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hosts the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera, the Washington Ballet, and a variety of other musical and stage performances. Notable local music clubs include Madam's Organ Blues Bar in Adams Morgan; the Eighteenth Street Lounge in the Dupont Circle district; and the Black Cat, the 9:30 Club, and the Bohemian Caverns jazz club, all in the U Street NW area. D.C. has its own native music genre, called go-go, a post-funk, percussion-driven flavor of R&B that blends live sets with relentless dance rhythms (that "go and go and go.") The most accomplished practitioner of go-go was D.C. bandleader Chuck Brown, who brought go-go to the brink of national recognition with his 1979 LP Bustin' Loose. Go-Go band and Washington natives Experience Unlimited hit the American pop charts in 1988 with their memorable dance tune "Da Butt". Washington was also an important center in the genesis of punk rock in the United States. Punk bands of note from Washington include Fugazi, Bad Brains, and Minor Threat. Native Washingtonians continue to support punk bands, long after the punk movement's popularity peaked. The region also has a storied indie rock history and was home to TeenBeat and Simple Machines, among other indie record labels. There have also been a number of television series that have featured the District. Most of these have been related to government (The West Wing) or security organizations (The District, Get Smart). Other programs had the nation's capital as a secondary focus, telling stories on their own that were not always tied to the infrastructure of the government either in the district or for the country. For instance, Murphy Brown focused on the lives of the reporters of the (fictional) Washington-based television newsmagazine, FYI. The soap opera Capitol allowed for stories about political intrigue alongside the traditional class struggle sagas. The sitcom 227 portrayed the life of the African-American majority as seen through the eyes of residents in a Washington apartment building.

Sports

Washington Metro area is home to several professional sports teams: the MLS D.C. United, the NHL Washington Capitals, the NBA Washington Wizards, the WNBA Washington Mystics, the MLB Washington Nationals, and the NFL Washington Redskins (now based at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland). Other professional and semi-professional teams based in D.C. include the USAFL Baltimore Washington Eagles, the NWFA D.C. Divas, the Minor League Football D.C. Explosion, and the Washington Cricket League. It was also home to the WUSA Washington Freedom, and, during the 2000–2002 NLL seasons, the Washington Power was based in the city. There were two Major League Baseball teams named the Washington Senators in the early and mid-20^th century, which left to become respectively the Minnesota Twins and the Texas Rangers. In the 19th century, the town was home to teams called the Washington Nationals, Washington Statesmen, and Washington Senators on and off from the 1870s to the turn of the century. Washington was also home to several Negro League teams, including the Homestead Grays, Washington Black Senators, Washington Elite Giants, Washington Pilots, and Washington Potomacs. The MCI Center in Chinatown, Washington, D.C., home to the Capitals, Mystics, Wizards, and the Georgetown Hoyas, is also a major venue for concerts, WWE professional wrestling, and other events. Washington also hosts the annual Legg Mason Tennis Classic tennis tournament that takes place at the Carter Barron Tennis Center on 16th Street.

Economy

Carter Barron Tennis Center Washington, D.C. is first and foremost a company town, with the primary company being, of course, the federal government. A significant portion of the metro area's population has some sort of connection to the federal government. Also, the presence of many major government agencies, including the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, or the Food and Drug Administration, has led to a significant amount of business development both in the District itself as well as in the suburbs of northern Virginia and Maryland. These businesses include federal contractors (defense and civilian), numerous nonprofit organizations, law firms and lobbying firms, catering and administrative services companies, and several other industries that are sustained by the enormous economic presence of the federal government. This arrangement has the effect of making the Washington economy virtually recession-proof relative to the rest of the country, because the federal government will still operate no matter the state of the general economy, and often grows during recessions. The metro area includes thirteen major Fortune 500 companies, including:
- Freddie Mac (McLean, Fairfax County)
- Fannie Mae
- electric utility Pepco Holdings Incorporated
- manufacturing company Danaher
- communications giant Nextel (Reston, Fairfax County)
- the credit card company Capital One (McLean, Fairfax County)
- AES Corporation (Arlington County)
- Gannett (McLean, Fairfax County), the publisher of USA Today
- SLM Corporation (Reston, Fairfax County)
- NVR Incorporated (McLean, Fairfax County)
- hotel services company Marriott International (Bethesda, Montgomery County)
- Choice Hotels (Silver Spring, Montgomery County)
- Coventry Healthcare Incorporated (Bethesda, Montgomery County) Defense contractors General Dynamics (Falls Church) and Lockheed Martin (Bethesda) are also in the metro area. In addition to Nextel, several other major network and communications companies are located in the area, including America Online (Dulles) and MCI Communications (Ashburn). Other media companies located in the DC metro area include the new XM Satellite Radio and Al Hurra (Springfield), a new cable new channel marketed towards Arabic countries. The Public Broadcasting Service is also based in suburban Alexandria, while Discovery Communications, the parent company of such cable networks as the Discovery Channel, is based in Silver Spring. The largest private employer in DC is the [http://wwww.bna.com Bureau of National Affairs], a publishing company based in the west end of the city since the early 1950s. The aerospace and commercial air travel industries also have a major presence in the area, in addition to the aforementioned General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and US Airways. Independence Air, based in Dulles, started service in 2004, and operates as a low-cost air carrier to many major airports in the United States. The regional airline Colgan Air, based in Manassas, also operates out of the DC area. Defense contractor Orbital Sciences Corporation is also based in Dulles and specializes in satellite launch and manufacture. Due to the proximity to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, the American genomics industry has recently sprouted in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. Prominent players are Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research (also known as "TIGR"), and Human Genome Sciences (all of which are in the city of Rockville). The gross state product of the District in 2004 was $75.264 billion, ranking it #36 when compared with the fifty states.

Infrastructure

Government

Local government

$ The city is run by an elected mayor (currently Anthony A. Williams) and a city council. The city council is composed of 13 members — a representative elected from each of the eight wards and five members, including the chairman, elected at large. The council conducts its work through standing committees and special committees established as needed. District schools are administered by a school board that has both elected and appointed members. There are also 37 elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissions that provide the most direct access for residents to their local government. The ANCs serve as local councils, and their suggestions are required to be given "great weight" by the DC Council. However, the U.S. Congress has the ultimate plenary power over the district. It has the right to review and overrule laws created locally, and has often done so. The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not apply to the District of Columbia. D.C. residents do pay all federal taxes, such as income tax, as well as local taxes. The mayor and council adopt a budget of local money with Congress reserving the right to make any changes. Much of the valuable property in the District is federally owned and hence exempt from local property taxes; at the same time, the city is burdened with the extraordinary expenses related to its role as the capital, such as police overtime and street cleaning for D.C.'s frequent parades and festivals. These factors are often used to explain why the city's budget is frequently overstretched. However, the federal government also appropriates funds for the city. For instance, according to Public Law 108-7, the federal government provided, among other funds, an estimated 25% of the District's operating budget in 2003. Historically, the city's local government has earned somewhat of a reputation for mismanagement and waste, particularly during the mayoralty of Marion Barry. A front page story in the July 21, 1997 Washington Post reported that Washington had some of the highest cost, lowest quality services in the region. Prosperity in the late 1990s and early 2000s has lessened public pressure on Mayor Williams, who still faces daunting urban renewal, public health, and public education challenges.

Representation in federal government

2000s The U.S. Constitution gives Congress direct jurisdiction for Washington, D.C. While Congress has delegated various amounts of this authority to local government, from time to time, Congress still intervenes in local affairs relating to schools, gun control policy, and other issues. Citizens of the District also lack voting representation in Congress, though they do have three electoral votes in the Presidential elections. Citizens of Washington are represented in the House of Representatives by a non-voting delegate (currently Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC At-Large)) who sits on committees and participates in debate but cannot vote. D.C. does not have representation in the Senate. Citizens of Washington, D.C. are thus unique in the world, as citizens of the capital city of every other country have the same representation rights as other citizens. Attempts to change this situation, including the proposed District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment, have been unsuccessful. The history of D.C.'s relationship with the federal government, as well as the arguments for and against increased representation, are covered in the article District of Columbia voting rights.

Education

Public schools

The public school system in the city is operated by District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and consists of 167 schools and learning centers, which breakdown into 101 elementary schools, 11 middle schools, 9 junior high schools, 20 senior high schools, 6 education centers, and 20 special schools. :See also: District of Columbia Public Schools

Private schools

Other schools in the city include the British School of Washington, Emerson Preparatory School, the Georgetown Day School, the Gonzaga Prepartory School, the Edmund Burke School, the Field School, the German School, the Maret School, the National Cathedral School, Our Lady of Victory, Reformed Theological Seminary, Sheridan School, the Sidwell Friends School, St. Albans School, St. Anselm's Abbey School, St. John's College High School, and the Washington Theological Union.

Colleges and universities

The city also is home to several universities, colleges, and other institutes of higher education, both public and private. The University of the District of Columbia is the city's public university; UDC is the nation's only urban land-grant university and is counted among the historically black colleges. The Department of Agriculture's Graduate School offers continuing-education and graduate-level classes. The Department of Defense maintains the National Defense University at Fort McNair. Among private institutions, Georgetown University is older than the District itself, dating to the late 18th century. It is also the nation's oldest Roman Catholic body of higher education. The two other Roman Catholic universities in the District are The Catholic University of America and Trinity University. The George Washington University, founded by an act of Congress in 1821, is the largest institution of higher education in the nation's capital with its main campus in Foggy Bottom and its Mount Vernon campus in the Foxhall neighborhood of Northwest Washington. GWU is also the second-largest landholder and employer in the District, second only to the Federal government. American University, chartered by act of Congress in 1893, is situated on a 72 acre campus in upper Northwest Washington and is well known for the Washington College of Law, the Kogod School of Business, the School of International Service, and the School of Communication. Also known for international affairs, The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), is dedicated to the graduate study of international relations and international economics and is located near Dupont Circle. Other notable private colleges in the District include Gallaudet University, the first school for the advanced education of the deaf and hard-of-hearing; Howard University, a historically black university dating to the 19th century; and Southeastern University. The Corcoran College of Art and Design has an arts program attatched to the Corcoran Museum of Art, adjacent to the White House Complex. Strayer University, a for-profit career school, has a campus in Washington, D.C.

Transportation

Aviation

Washington, D.C. is served by three major airports, two of them located in suburban Virginia and one located in Maryland. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is the closest — located in Arlington, Virginia, just across the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical). 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical) The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. The White House is a white-painted, neoclassical sandstone mansion located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. (). As the office of the President of the United States, the term "White House" is often used as a metonym for the president's administration. The property is owned by the National Park Service and is part of President's Park. An image of the White House is on the back of the $20 bill.

History

$20 bill The White House was built after Congress established the District of Columbia as the permanent capital of the United States on July 16, 1790. President George Washington himself helped select the site, along with city planner Pierre L'Enfant. The architect was chosen in a competition, which received nine proposals. James Hoban, an Irishman, was awarded the honor and construction began with the laying of the cornerstone on October 13, 1792. The building he designed was modelled on the first and second floors of Leinster House, a ducal palace in Dublin, Ireland, that is now the seat of the Irish Parliament. Contrary to widely published myth, the North portico was not modelled on a similar portico on another Dublin building, the Viceregal Lodge (now Áras an Uachtaráin, residence of the President of Ireland). Its portico in fact postdates the White House portico's design. The decision to place the capital on land ceded by two slave states—Virginia and Maryland—ultimately influenced the acquisition of laborers to construct its public buildings. The D.C. commissioners, charged by Congress with building the new city under the direction of the president, initially planned to import workers from Europe to meet their labor needs. However, response to recruitment was dismal and soon they turned to African Americans—slave and free—to provide the bulk of labor that built the White House. President of Ireland Construction of the White House was completed on November 1, 1800. Over an extremely slow 8 years of construction, $232,371.83 was spent. With inflation, this would be approximately equivalent to $2.4 million today. The front and rear porticoes were not part of the structure until about 1825. The building was originally referred to as the Presidential Palace or Presidential Mansion. Dolley Madison called it the "President's Castle." However, by 1811 the first evidence of the public calling it the "White House" emerged, because of its white-painted stone exterior. The name Executive Mansion was often used in official context until President Theodore Roosevelt established the formal name by having "The White House" engraved on his stationery in 1901. John Adams became the first president to take residence in the building on November 1, 1800. In 1814 during the War of 1812, much of Washington, D.C., was set alight by British troops (invading from what would later become Canada), and the White House was gutted. Only the exterior walls remained, but it was rebuilt. The walls were repainted white, but the White House was always painted white as early as 1798, and the repainting from the fire damage did not originate the term "White House" as a popular urban legend claims it did. Very few of the spoils of the British troops stolen from the Whitehouse have been recovered. Only two artifacts have been recovered — a painting of George Washington, rescued by then-first lady Dolley Madison, and a jewelry box returned to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939 by a Canadian who said his grandfather had taken it from Washington. The bounty was lost when a fleet of British ships en route to Halifax sank off Prospect during a storm. HMS Fantome was leading a convoy of ships back to Halifax when the vessels sank in a storm on the night of Nov. 24, 1814. [http://herald.ns.ca/Metro/468063.html] HMS Fantome The White House was attacked again on August 16, 1841, when U.S. President John Tyler vetoed a bill which called for the establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members rioted outside the White House in what was (and still is, as of 2005) the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history. Like the English and Irish country houses it resembled, the White House was remarkably open to the public until the early part of the twentieth century. President Thomas Jefferson held an open house for his second inaugural in 1805, when many of the people at his swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol followed him home, where he greeted them in the Blue Room. Blue Room Those open houses sometimes became rowdy: in 1829, President Andrew Jackson had to leave for a hotel when roughly 20,000 citizens celebrated his inauguration inside the White House. His aides ultimately had to lure the mob outside with washtubs filled with a potent cocktail of orange juice and whiskey. Even so, the practice continued until 1885, when newly elected Grover Cleveland arranged for a presidential review of the troops from a grandstand in front of the White House instead of the traditional open house. Jefferson also permitted public tours of his home, which have continued ever since, except during wartime, and began the tradition of annual receptions on New Year's Day and on the Fourth of July. Those receptions ended in the early 1930s. The White House remained open in other ways as well; President Abraham Lincoln complained that he was constantly beleaguered by job seekers waiting to ask him for political appointments or other favors as he began the business day. Lincoln put up with the annoyance rather than risk alienating some associate or friend of a powerful politician or opinion maker. The White House was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960.

Structure

1960 1960 Very few people realize the size of the White House, since much of it is below ground or otherwise minimized by landscaping. In fact, the White House has:
- 6 stories and 55,000 ft² (5,100 m²) of floor space
- 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms [http://www.worldstrides.com/sitesandsnapshots/dc_sites/whitehouse.asp]
- 412 doors
- 147 windows
- 28 fireplaces
- 8 staircases
- 3 elevators
- 5 full-time chefs
- 5,000 visitors a day
- a tennis court
- a bowling lane
- a movie theater
- a jogging track
- a swimming pool landscaping It is also one of the few government buildings in Washington that is wheelchair-accessible, with modifications having been made during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who needed to use a wheelchair as a result of polio. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman added a much-discussed balcony to the South Portico at the second-floor level. Not long after the balcony was constructed, the building was found to be structurally unsound, and in imminent danger of collapse. President Truman and family moved to Blair House across the street while the White House was renovated. The old interior was dismantled, leaving the house as a shell. It was then rebuilt using concrete and steel beams in place of its original wooden joists. Some modifications were made, with the largest being the repositioning of the grand staircase to open into the Entrance Hall, rather than the Cross Hall, as was the case previously. President Truman and family moved back into the White House on March 27, 1952. Though the structural integrity of the building had been corrected in the late 1940's and early 1950's, the interior, as a result of decades of poor maintenance and then the process of removal and reinstatement, had been allowed to deteriorate. Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of President John F. Kennedy (1961–63), remodeled the interior of many rooms with decors inspired by its early nineteenth-century appearance, often using high-quality furniture that had been put in storage in the basements and forgotten about. Many of the antiques, fine paintings, and other improvements of the Kennedy period were given to the White House by rich donors, including Jane Engelhard, Jayne Wrightsman, the Oppenheimer family of South Africa, and other moneyed individuals. The Kennedy decor, much admired then as now, had an imperial Francophile air that was the result of the decorator Stephane Boudin of Jansen, the eminent Paris design company that had planned and/or executed decors for the royal families of Belgium and Iran, the Duchess of Windsor, and Nazi Germany's Reichsbank. The rooms that had a more early American appearance were decorated by Boudin but heavily influenced by the millionaire museum founder Henry Francis du Pont. Since then, every presidential family has made changes to the decor of the White House, some subtle, others more profound and controversial. In the 1990s, for example, President and Mrs. Clinton had some of the rooms recast by Arkansas decorator Kaki Hockersmith; the result, though presumably inspired by the Kennedy years, was unveiled to general derision.

The West Wing

In the early twentieth century, new buildings were added to the wings at either side of the main White House to accommodate the President's growing staff, which had previously used an office located in the U.S. Capitol. Both new wings were largely concealed from view by being built to a lower height than the main house. The West Wing houses the President's office and offices of his political staff. It currently holds about 50 employees. U.S. Capitol As with much of the White House at the time, the West Wing was substantially remodeled and expanded for President Theodore Roosevelt by the New York architects McKim, Mead & White and contained a new cabinet room, with a small, square office next door that served as the President's office. Before the building of the new West Wing, presidential staff worked on the second floor. President William Howard Taft had the interior remodeled. Central to the remodeling was a new presidential office in the dead center of the building, which, given its shape, was nicknamed the Oval Office. On December 24, 1929 (Christmas Eve), the West Wing was significantly damaged by fire. In 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt became President, he undertook the third and final major reorganization with a new Oval Office being constructed; he disliked the original central location because it lacked windows and, as a result, was entirely reliant on skylights. The new office's location also allowed Presidents greater privacy, as they were now able to slip back and forth between the main White House and the West Wing without being in full view of the West Wing staff, a problem with the two earlier offices. Roosevelt also constructed a swimming pool to enable him to exercise. In 1969, to accommodate the growing number of reporters assigned to the White House and based in the West Wing, President Richard Nixon had the by-then unused pool covered over. The former swimming pool is now the location of the Press Center, where the President's spokesperson gives daily briefings. Nixon also renamed the room (which, prior to the rebuilding after the 1929 fire, had been the first Oval Office) as the Roosevelt Room, in honor of the two Presidents Roosevelt: Theodore, who first built the West Wing, and Franklin, who built the current Oval Office. By tradition, a portrait of Franklin Roosevelt hangs in the room during the administration of a president from the Democratic Party and a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt hangs during the administration of a Republican president. As presidential staffs grew substantially in the latter half of the twentieth century, the West Wing generally came to be seen as too small for its modern governmental functions. Today, some members of the President's staff are located in the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB)—originally the State, War, and Navy Building, which housed the Departments of State, War (i.e., Army) and the Navy. Beginning in 1999, a popular television show called The West Wing brought greater public attention to the workings of the Presidential staff, as well as to the location of those workings in the West Wing (rather than in the White House itself). When asked whether the show accurately captured the working environment, some former White House staffers observed that the television set appeared less crowded than the real offices. In 2003, Press Secretary Scott McClellan commented that the show portrayed more foot traffic and larger rooms than in the real wing.

The East Wing

The East Wing, which contains additional office space, was added to the White House in 1942. Among its uses, the East Wing has intermittently housed the offices and staff of the First Lady. Rosalynn Carter, in 1977, was the first to place her personal office in the East Wing and to formally call it the "Office of the First Lady." The East Wing was built during World War II in order to hide the construction of an underground bunker to be used in emergency situations. The bunker has come to be known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center.

The White House grounds

Although the White House grounds have had many gardeners through their history, the current layout was designed in 1935 by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. of the Olmsted Brothers firm, under commission from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Web site

The official White House website is http://www.whitehouse.gov/. It was established on October 17, 1994. This website used a very lengthy robots exclusion file to shield much of its contents from search engines (http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt). As of early June 2005, the list contains over 2,200 directories. A visitor may still use the [http://www.whitehouse.gov/search/ official search tool] to retrieve information. However, the searchable contents are controlled by the U.S. government. There are still many directories not covered by the robots exclusion file. For example, www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/ is a Google searchable directory, while www.whitehouse.gov/president/100days/iraq/ is not. As of October 2005, the site is approximately the 1,899th most popular destination on the Internet in terms of traffic, according to Alexa.com. [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?q=&url=whitehouse.gov]

External links

- [http://www.whitehouse.gov WhiteHouse.gov, official White House website] (source of much information in this article)
- Note: Before the White House had an official Internet presence, others registered the Whitehouse.org and Whitehouse.com domains. These are not official White House websites. WhiteHouse.org is a parody website, while WhiteHouse.com was once a pornography site, it is now an e-commerce directory.
- [http://www.nps.gov/whho/index.htm President's Park NPS Site]

References

Robots.txt

- [http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19357 The Inquirer] - The White House site's use of robots.txt
- [http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt] - The actual robots.txt Category:Buildings of the United States federal government Category:Executive Branch of the United States Government Category:Official residences Category:U.S. National Historic Landmarks Category:Washington, D.C. landmarks White House ja:ホワイトハウス

Geoid

gravity field. (ESA image)]] A geoid is an equipotential surface which (approximately) coincides with the mean ocean surface. It is often referred to as a close representation or physical model of the figure of the Earth. According to C.F. Gauss, it is the "mathematical figure of the Earth", in fact, of the gravity field. It is that equipotential surface (surface of fixed potential value) which coincides on average with mean sea level. The geoid surface is more irregular than the ellipsoid of revolution often used to approximate the shape of the physical Earth, but considerably smoother than Earth's physical surface. While the latter has excursions of +8,000 m (Mount Everest) and −11,000 m (Mariana Trench), the geoid varies by only about ±100 m about the reference ellipsoid of revolution. Because the force of gravity is everywhere perpendicular to the geoid (being an equipotential surface), sea water, if left to itself, would assume a surface equal to it—even through the continental land masses if sea water were allowed to freely penetrate them, e.g., by tunnels. In reality it can not, of course; still, geodesists are able to derive the heights of continental points above this imaginary, yet physically defined, surface by a technique called spirit levelling. When travelling by ship, one does not notice the undulations of the geoid; the local vertical is always perpendicular to it, and the local horizon tangential to it. A GPS receiver on board may show the height variations relative to the (mathematically defined) reference ellipsoid, the centre of which coincides with the Earth's centre of mass, the centre of orbital motion of GPS satellites.

Spherical harmonics representation

Spherical harmonics are often used to approximate the shape of the geoid. The current best such set of spherical harmonic coefficients is EGM96 (Earth Gravity Model 1996), determined in an international collaborative project led by NIMA. It contains a full set of coefficients to degree and order 360, describing details in the global geoid as small as 55 km. The mathematical description of this model is :

V=\frac\left(1+\left(\frac\right)
\overline_(\sin\phi)\left[\overline_\cos m\lambda+\overline_\sin m\lambda\right]\right),

where

\phi\

and

\lambda\

are geocentric latitude and longitude respectively,

\overline_

are the fully normalized Legendre functions of degree

n\

and order

m\

, and

\overline_

and

\overline_

are the coefficients of the model. One easily counts that there are approx.

\begin \frac \end n(n+1)\approx

65,000 different coefficients. The above formula produces the Earth's gravitational potential

V\

at location

\phi,\;\lambda,\;r,\

the co-ordinate

r\

being the geocentric radius, i.e, distance from the Earth's centre.

Pierre Charles L'Enfant

Pierre Charles L'Enfant (2 August 1754 – 14 June 1825) designed the street plan of the Federal City in the United States, now known as Washington, D.C.. Born in France, he came to the American colonies as a military engineer with General Lafayette and became closely identified with the United States, adopting the name Peter. He was wounded at the siege of Savannah in 1779, but recovered and served in General Washington's staff for the remainder of the Revolutionary War. Following the war, he achieved some fame as an architect by redesigning Federal Hall in New York City. He designed coins, medals, furniture and houses of the wealthy. He was a friend of treasurer Alexander Hamilton. Shortly thereafter, as a result of his connections, L'Enfant was appointed by George Washington to design a new federal capital. The layout was begun in 1791. Because of his temperament and insistence on the city being realised as a whole, L'Enfant's plan for the Federal City was only partially executed during his lifetime. The District Commissioners wanted to direct the limited funds available into the construction of the federal buildings; in this they had the support of Thomas Jefferson. L'Enfant was dismissed from the execution of the project. The plan was put in the hands of the surveyors, Andrew and Joseph Ellicott who had conducted the original surveys of the Federal District of Columbia with the assistance of Benjamin Banneker, a mathematician. L'Enfant was not paid for his work, and fell into disgrace, spending much of the rest of his life trying to persuade Congress what he felt he was due. He was offered a position as Professor of Engineering at West Point in 1812 but declined. L'Enfant died in poverty and was buried at the farm of a friend in Prince George's County, Maryland. In 1901 the McMillan Commission used the original design of L'Enfant as the cornerstone of its 1902 report, which laid out a plan for a sweeping National Mall. His adopted nation finally recognizing his genius, L'Enfant was reinterred in Arlington National Cemetery with a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in 1909 and honored with a monument at his grave in 1911. L'Enfant, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Pierre Charles

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded¹ from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln i