Washington D.C

Protests and rallies also happen at the National Mall. One of the most famous was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech. A rally in 1969 to end the Vietnam War was the biggest protest on the Mall. Over 2 million people came and marched to the White House.

THE CAPITOL

The United States Capitol is the building where the United States Congress meets. It is the centre of the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government. It is on top of Capitol Hill at the east end of the National Mall. The capitol has a large “wedding-cake style” dome in the centre, above a rotunda - a large space that is shaped like a circle. The Rotunda is where high members of Government lie in state after their death so that people can come and see them for the last time. Eleven presidents have lain in state in the Rotunda for public viewing, most recently Gerald Ford. There are also two wings that are connected to the rotunda on opposite sides. The north wing is where the Senate meets and the south wing is where the House of Representatives meets. These wings are also called chambers. On the top floors of the chambers are galleries, or balconies where people can watch the Senate and House of Representatives from above. The Statue of Freedom is on top of the capitol.

The Capitol is where you would expect Senators and Representatives to be all the time. They aren't. They do most of their work in their offices and they only go to the Capitol to vote. When they are needed to vote, a bell rings in their offices, they go downstairs, take a private subway into the Capitol and vote. Then they go back to their offices.

THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT

When you stand on the stairs of the Capitol, in front of you in the distance there is a large, tall, white obelisk – Washington Monument. The monument is made of marble, granite, and sandstone and it is the world´s tallest stone structure (170m). It was built from contributions given by the people of Washington, D.C. The costs were much higher than expected and they had to stop because the American Civil War started. Construction continued after the war ended, but the type of sandstone was changed. Because of this, about halfway up, you can see a change in colour of the monument.

THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL

Behind the Washington Monument there is the Lincoln Memorial. It is a square, Pantheon-like white building with columns around it. It was built to remember Abraham Lincoln, who was the 16th President of the United States and led the nation during the American Civil War. There are wide stairs leading into it and a large statue of Abraham Lincoln sits inside. Some quotations from his famous speeches are inscribed on the walls. They mean that Abraham Lincoln will forever be remembered here, just like he will be remembered by the people of the United States, who he saved. Because Lincoln is associated with freeing slaves, the Memorial has been a centre for civil rights protests in the United States (e.g. Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech was given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial).