Construction of United States Capitol

The United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., is the seat of the U.S. Congress. President George Washington laid its cornerstone in a ceremony in September 1793, and the design by William Thornton, a physician and amateur architect, had been selected in a competition. Congress first met in the building in 1800, though it was unfinished. British troops set fire to it in August 1814, during the War of 1812, and it was rebuilt under the architects Benjamin Latrobe and Charles Bulfinch. The present cast-iron dome, designed by Thomas U. Walter, was built in the 1850s and 1860s, and is crowned by the Statue of Freedom, put in place in 1863. The building has been enlarged several times and is both a working legislature and a national symbol.

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