The most recent Presidential election saw voter turnout in the United States reach a record high and brought more new people into the Democratic process than any other event in history. It also stimulated a renewed interest in Washington DC tours. As Americans and visitors from other countries watch world leaders publicly speak on issues that affect us all from podiums along the Potomac, the passion to see sites like the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol, and the White House stirs in their hearts and minds.

Washington DC is not the birthplace of Democracy but it is one of the places where it is practiced daily. Every building you see in the Capitol area is somehow related to the governmental structure that is relied on to run this great nation we know as the Land of the Free. Since the city was first established at the end of the 18th Century it has been the center of world events. In 1814, when the British briefly took the city and burned most of it, including the White House, the rest of the world looked on to see if the fledgling nation would recover.

The United States did recover, of course, and has grown into a world superpower today. If you go on a Washington DC tour you’ll be taught how half a century after the sack of the city Abraham Lincoln sent out the Emancipation Proclamation by telegraph from the White House, the beginning of the end of slavery not only in the US but throughout the world. On that same Washington DC tour you might also learn that the city was originally designed by Pierre L’Enfant, who after a disagreement with Washington and Jefferson wasn’t allowed to finish the job, and then redesigned in 1901 under the McMillan plan, which incorporated many of the original L’Enfant ideas.

Forty-two US Presidents have lived in the White House since it was first completed in November of 1800. The first was John Adams. The painting on the inside of the Capitol dome is called the Apotheosis of Washington and was painted by Constantino Brumidi in 1856. He also worked on the Frieze of United States History which is the series of images beneath the rim of the dome that was started in 1878 and completed in 1953. It is a pictorial history of the United States. The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in 1922 and in 1963 was the site of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. All of this information is available from any Washington DC tour guide and all of these sites and more