Washington, D.C., is a city filled with monuments and memorials. The city could rival Rome, although its monuments are still standing as of this writing. Like Rome, many of the monuments utilize older architectural styles such as Roman and Grecian; for example, the Lincoln Memorial is in essence a Grecian temple and the Jefferson Memorial clearly borrows architectural design from the Pantheon in Rome.
The Washington Monument took a long time to build due to its timeline coinciding with that of the Civil War. Plans began as early as 1783 but the monument did not officially open to the public until February, 1888. The original design called for a statue of George Washington riding a chariot atop a largely flat obelisk but the final design was of a classic Egyptian-style obelisk without a statue.
Lincoln's memorial was designed with 36 Doric columns (one for each state at the time Lincoln died) in the style of a classic Grecian temple with a statue of Lincoln seated inside. When the temple was completed in 1922, 12 more states had been added to the Union and so the names of all 48 states were carved onto the outside of the temple. When Alaska and Hawaii were later added to the Union, a plaque was added to the temple with their names.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall was envisioned and advocated for by a Vietnam veteran named Ian Scruggs of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. Completed in November of 1984, the memorial's wall includes the names of every soldier who died in service in Vietnam or is still missing in action or presumed dead after having served there.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt felt that Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the U.S. Constitution, deserved a memorial. Construction began in 1939 and the memorial was dedicated in 1944. Because Jefferson had been a supporter of classic architecture, a portico reminiscent of the Pantheon in Rome was used in the design. Because metals were scarce during World War II, the original statue of Jefferson was plaster. After the war, the plaster statue was replaced with one of bronze.
After winning a battle which gave the U.S. forces the highest mountain on the island of Iwo Jima, a photographer captured a photo of six American Marines pushing the U.S. flag into the soil. Of the six men in the picture that became the statue, only three survived Iwo Jima. A statue based on that photo was turned into a memorial across the Potomac River from Washingon, D.C,. near Arlington Cemetery.
