Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States. Located between Virginia and Maryland on the north bank of the Potomac River, the city is home to all three branches of the federal government, as well as the White House, the Supreme Court, and the Capitol Building.
Washington had an estimated population of 700,000 as of July 2018, making it the 20th most populous city in the United States. It was founded in 1791 and named after President George Washington. Colombia in District of Columbia refers to Christopher Columbus.
Washington, the District of Columbia, is not a state, nor is it a part of any state. It is a unique federal district created specifically to be the seat of government. From the very beginning, it was a city that was steeped in history and created out of a need to establish a central location for the running of the government. The history of Washington, D.C.
is tied to its role as the capital of the United States. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when the Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century. One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. The site of the District of Columbia along the Potomac River was first selected by President George Washington.
The city was officially founded in 1790 after both Maryland and Virginia ceded land to this new district. to be distinct and distinguished from the rest of the states. To design the city, in 1791, George Washington appointed Pierre Charles L'Enfant to devise a plan for the new city in which the federal territory would lay between the northeast shore of the Potomac River and the northwest shore of the Potomac's eastern branch. He planned a grid system, at which the center would be the Capitol building.
Progress was slow, but the U.S. government moved to Washington in 1800. In 1802, Robert Brent was appointed the first mayor of Washington. However, a decade later, because of the war with Britain, the city came under attack in an episode known as the Burning of Washington. British forces burned several buildings, including the White House.
Most government buildings were repaired quickly. However, the capital was largely under construction at the time and was not completed in its current form until the late 1800s. In the early and mid-19th century, Washington, D.C. continued to grow. A rail line from Baltimore to Washington was opened in 1835. However, there was racial tension in the growing city.
There were many slaves in Washington as well as free blacks. The tension erupted in the Snow Riot of 1835 when whites attacked blacks. Washington remained a small city of a few thousand residents, virtually deserted during the summertime until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. President Abraham Lincoln created the Army of the Potomac to defend the federal capital. Thousands of soldiers came to the area. A year later, slavery was abolished throughout the district.
Eight months before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the city became a popular place for freed slaves. The significant expansion of the federal government to administer the war and its legacies led to notable growth in the city's population, doubled to 132,000 in 1870. Life in Washington, D.C. improved in the late 19th century.
President Grant appointed Alexander Robay Shepard to authorize large-scale projects that greatly modernized Washington. It was the first city in the nation to undergo urban renewal projects as part of the City Beautiful Movement in the early 1900s. In the early 20th, the McMillan Plan was drawn up to remove many of the slums that surrounded the Capitol, replacing them with new public monuments and government buildings. Washington, D.C., however, remained deeply divided along racial lines. Violence broke out in cities across the country again.
Whites, including uniformed sailors and soldiers, attacked blacks during Red Summer. Woodrow Wilson gave a voice in world affairs throughout the country's entry into World War I in 1917 and through his work to establish the League of Nations, an organization promoting international cooperation. After the war, civic pride and culture flooded the city. Art galleries, museums, and concert halls were built.
Like the rest of the country, Washington, D.C. suffered in the Depression of the 1930s. At the same time, the city's population grew rapidly with the creation of additional federal agencies under the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, during which most of the Federal Triangle buildings were constructed. World War II brought further population increases and a significant housing shortage, as existing residents were urged to rent rooms to the influx of federal staffers who arrived from throughout the country.
In 1957, Washington became the first major city in the nation with a majority African-American population. With the build-up of government and defense industries during World War II, many new residents found jobs. In the post-war years, whites who were better established economically began to move to newer housing in adjoining states in the suburbanation movement that occurred around most major cities. In 1963, Washington took center stage in the civil rights movement. with the March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his historic, I Have a Dream speech.
However, following the assassination of King on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Washington was devastated by the riots. The civil unrest drove many whites and middle-class blacks to move out of the city core. Despite riots and civil unrest, Washington, D.C.
continued to develop during the rest of the 20th century. After more than 200 years as the nation's capital, Washington has developed as a complex and layered city with a distinctive character, both a town for locals, an international center of power, and an amazing place to visit. Thank you for watching. Please check out our other animations on history and don't forget to share, like, and subscribe.