It was two years ago today that the iconic Washington Monument reopened to the public after it was damaged by a earthquake. The Monument has been a magnet for historic occurrences, and here are some highlights.
The 5. Jarvis said in a statement that Rubenstein joined an impressive line of civic-minded donors, such as Stephen Mather, John D.
Rockefeller, Jr. The Washington Monument officially was dedicated on February 21, Here are 10 more fascinating facts about this American symbol. James Madison had an early role in getting the monument project started. In , the Washington National Monument Society, a private organization, came up with the idea for the tribute to the first President.
This design was modified leaving the obelisk that stands today. In , the Washington National Monument Society ran out of money 7 years after the cornerstone was laid. When the Vatican donated a stone, the Know Nothings, a conservative anti-Catholic political party, objected and stole the block. Construction stopped in Capped with a wooden roof, the partially finished obelisk sat unchanged for nearly 20 years.
In , Congress, agreed that "at this the beginning of the second century of national existence, [we] do assume and direct the completion of the Washington Monument.
Without funds, work on the monument slowed to a halt. Architect Robert Mills died in For more than two decades, the monument stood only partly finished, doing more to embarrass the nation than to honor its most important Founding Father. Congressional attempts to support the Washington National Monument Society failed as attentions turned toward the sectional crisis, then civil war. Only as the nation was rebuilding did attention once again turn toward honoring the man who had once united the states in a common purpose.
By a joint resolution passed on July 5, , Congress assumed the duty of funding and building the Washington Monument. The U. Army Corps of Engineers, led by Lt. Thomas Lincoln Casey, was responsible for directing and completing the work.
Casey's first task was to strengthen the foundation of the monument, which he determined was inadequate for the structure as it was designed. For four years, the builders carefully beefed up the support at the base of the foundation to support the massive weight of the superstructure to come. To continue building upward, the masons needed stone.
The trouble was that the quarry near Baltimore used for the initial construction was no longer available after so many years. Seeking a suitable match, the builders turned to a quarry in Massachusetts. However, problems quickly emerged with the quality and color of the stone, and the irregularity of deliveries. After adding several courses of this stone from Massachusetts, still recognizable by the naked eye today as a brown-streaked beltline one-third of the way up the monument, the builders turned to a third quarry near Baltimore that proved more favorable, and used that stone for the upper two-thirds of the structure.
The stone never matched exactly, and the three slightly different colors from the three quarries are distinguishable today. The book had been banned immediately in both the United States and England when it came out in Three years earlier, its serialization in an American review had been cut short by the U. Post Office for the Altamont, a new music festival in Northern California, was the brainchild of the Rolling Stones, who hoped to cap off their U.
Unlike Woodstock, however, which was A guard, who had been shot by brothers Frank, William, and Simeon Reno during a train robbery in May, dies of his wounds.
His death so infuriated the public that a group of vigilantes yanked the three brothers from their Indiana jail cell five days later and hanged them. Live TV. This Day In History.
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