History of Washington, D.C.

Three of the nation's founding fathers, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton, agreed in 1790 to a compromise location for a new national capital on largely uninhabited land along the Potomac River in the Mid-Atlantic. The exact location was left up to George Washington, who carved a diamond-shaped federal district out of land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, which just so happened to be near his plantation at Mount Vernon. The new territory also included two existing settlements: Georgetown, on the Maryland side of the Potomac, and Alexandria, Virginia, at the district's southern tip.

The French-born architect Pierre L'Enfant was charged with planning a new federal city located on the north side of the Potomac, next to Georgetown. L'Enfant's plan, modeled after some of the leading cities in Europe, envisioned large parks and wide streets, including a grand boulevard connecting the "President's House" to the Capitol building. However, L'Enfant was a bit of an eccentric and he fought bitterly with the commissioners appointed to supervise the capital's construction. President Washington ultimately dismissed L'Enfant, but the problems didn't end there. Issues with financing and a lack of skilled craftsmen slowed the construction of the city. The commissioners ultimately relied on African slaves lent from nearby plantations to complete construction. The federal government finally moved to the federal city in 1800, which by then had been named Washington, in honor of its founder (though he still preferred to call it the "Federal City").

British forces invaded the city during the War of 1812, burning and gutting the Capitol, Treasury, and White House. And things didn't get much better for the new national capital. When he founded the city, President Washington originally thought that