A few history lessons from Washington D.C.

Just yesterday I got back from a quick trip to Washington, D.C. to visit some family. As I toured through many of the landmarks of our nation's capital I learned lots of fascinating things about America that I would like to share with all of you now.

--The Capitol building in Washington D.C. was not originally called "The Capitol." In fact, it didn't even have a name. When the dome was placed on the building, many people commented how it looked like a cap. (You will recall how some of the early baseball caps had spikes coming out of the top--these were later used as a model for the military helmets used in World War I.) Eventually, many people began to regularly comment on the size of the cap by saying, "Wow! That cap is tall." However, because of the accent used in America at that time in the 19th Century, regular Americans often failed to pronounce the letter "s", so it actually sounded more like Eliza Doolittle proclaiming, "Wow (guvna)! That cap i' tall!" Eventually from this phrase, the word "Capitol" was formed and has remained to this day.

--It is a commonly known fact after the failed attempt of the Pony Express, the United States Postal Service relied much on the passenger pigeon to deliver the mail from one end of the country to the other. However, the passenger pigeons were good for target practice as well as delivering parcels, and the last one was shot extinct in 1914. This caused a mail crisis. This crisis was solved though when the US government ordered in the importation of 300,000 camels from Egypt to be used as the primary source of distributing mail throughout these United States. For a time, the camel flourished and herds of camels freely roamed the mid-western United States. President Woodrow Wilson assured the American people that the camel was destined to become "the new bison--only we won't kill them off this time." Sadly, the tragic outbreak of Camel Flu in 1918 ordered for the immediate extermination of all camels within American borders. The age of the mail-carrying camel was tragically cut short.

--The Supreme Court was originally called the "Greatest Court." However, early Supreme Court Justice William Cushing of Massachusetts was such a fan of Supreme pizza from Pizza Hut that he would bring in leftovers to the court everyday to eat at lunchtime. Throughout his life, he constantly tried to get the official name of the court changed to the "Supreme Court," but everyone in Washington just thought he was silly. When Justice Cushing died in 1810, the remaining justices honored Cushing's witnesses and began to refer to themselves as the "Supreme Court."

--The well-known motto of the United States, "Out of Many, One" is actually a translation of the often heard Latin phrase "Carpe Diem." Who knew?!

--In the United States Capitol building there is a large statue of the early Hawaiian King Kamehameha donning a bright gold robe. The use of the gold is of course to symbolize the massive gold rush to the western US that occurred in the middle of the 19th Century. Seeing as Hawaii is are most western state, the sculptors at the Capitol thought it only appropriate to have King Kamehameha don a golden robe to remind us all of the American Gold Rush.