Pierre L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the city of Washington first suggested a reflecting pool for the Capitol, but was never built. The 1902 McMillian Commission design for the National Mall revived the idea, yet it still took until 1971 for the…

In 1912, the United States received a shipment of 3,020 cherry trees as a gift from the government of Japan. These were a replacement for a gift of trees in 1909 which had to be destroyed because they were infected with root disease. The trees were a…

Stretching approximately a third of a mile from end to end, the reflecting pool lies between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Built in 1920 on marshland, the pool gradually sank, leaking into the surrounding land. In 2012, the pool…

The Cuban Friendship Urn originally stood in Cuba to honor American deaths on the USS Maine and during the Spanish-American War. After the urn was damaged in a 1926 hurricane, it was sent to the United States and placed outside the Cuban Embassy.…

The result of decades of planning and effort, the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial honors the Civil War general and US President. The massive memorial features three sections: a large statue of Grant on his horse, a separate sculpture entitled Artillery on…

President's Park is made up of the White House, the Ellipse, and Lafayette Square, and has existed for more than 200 years. Originally, President's Park was only the grounds immediately surrounding the White House, but over time it grew to include…

One of America's premier scientists, and the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Joseph Henry (1797-1878), is memorialized in this statue just outside the Smithsonian Castle.  John Phillips Sousa wrote an original musical piece, Transit…

A large sculpture depicting a frontier father defending his family from an attacking American Indian, "The Rescue" has been a source of controversy since its installation in 1850. Sculptor Horatio Greenough stated that he was trying to show the…

Horatio Greenough's "Enthroned Washington" is one of the more controversial sculptures located on the Mall. Congress commissioned the statue in honor of Washington's 100th Birthday and was installed in the Capitol Rotunda in 1841. Many legislators…

George Mason (1725-1792), author of Virginia's Declaration of Rights, was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He refused to sign the Constitution because of the absence of a Bill of Rights and a disagreement over the issue of standing…