Saturday, 27 December 2014

Washington Monument - Most Visited in World

The Washington Monument is a 555ft/169m tall obelisk built between 1848 and 1884 in honor of the first President of the United States, George Washington Monument . It is the tallest free standing masonry structure in the world.

As early as 1783, when George Washington  Monument was still alive, plans by Pierre Charles l'Enfant for an equestrian statue of Washington were approved by Congress. The plan was never realized so in 1833, at the centennial anniversary of George Washington's birth, James Madison and John Marshall decided to take matters in their own hands and founded the Washington National Monument Society; its purpose was to build a famous monument for George Washington.              
             
The Washington Monument was built to honor George Washington, the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and the first president of the United States. The structure was designed by Robert Mills, with construction beginning in 1848. Construction was halted from 1854 to 1877, due to the Know Nothing Party’s rise to control of the Washington National Monument Society through an illegal election, lack of funding and the Civil War.It was completed in 1884 by Thomas Casey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and an elevator was added to the monument in 1889, which shuttles tourists to the top of the monument to this day.

The stone monument to George Washington  Monument did not begin until July 4, 1848 (because of a lack of funds). Work on the monument was stopped in 1854 (when the monument was only 152 feet tall), after donations dropped off. The project was almost abandoned, but work finally began again in 1876 (you can see the slight difference in color of the marble on the bottom third and the upper two-thirds of the monument).

This memorial was dedicated in 1922 to honor President Abraham Lincoln. Thirty-eight Grecian columns surround a statue of Lincoln seated on the ten-foot high marble base. This impressive statue is encompassed by engraved readings from the Gettysburg address, his Second Inaugural address and murals by French painter Jules Guerin.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was created by architect Maya Ying Lin who said her idea was that “The names would end up being the memorial”. The Vietnam Memorial is situated on the far west end from the National Mall just northeast from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. The memorial was dedicated in 1982 and honors the United states servicemen and ladies who served within the Vietnam War (1959-1975). The washington monument is most popular in american region and american offers tourists many of monuments and american attractions to visit.

No comments:

Post a Comment