DC Trivia: 18 Interesting facts about Washington DC

The capital city of the United States of America holds within its borders a multitude of exciting places to visit. From the historical to just plain silly, any of your interests can be satisfied with the museums and monuments in Washington, DC.

The White House

1. If you're taking the tour and need to use the restroom, never fear, there are 35 restrooms in the President's house!

2. President John Adams was the first to sleep in the White House. George Washington had passed away a year before the completion of construction.

3. The first equestrian statue made in the early years of the United States had components of British cannons confiscated during the War of 1812. It is Andrew Jackson and is in Lafayette Square near the White House.

4. In 1878, the phone number for the White House was 1. The President didn't have his phone in the Oval Office until 1929.

5. The District of Columbia was named to honor Christopher Columbus.

6. George Washington designated 100 acres in Virginia and Maryland to be the capital of our new country. The central city was fittingly named Washington.

7. Numerous Presidential pets over the decades include: cats, dogs, guinea pigs, a small bear, a badger, a pony, a hyena, a one-legged rooster, a lizard, a blue macaw, a hen named Baron Spreckle, a rabbit, a barn owl, racoons, a pygmy hippo, lion cubs, a bobcat, a donkey, numerous birds, a wallaby and an antelope.

DC Monuments, Memorials, Statues and More

8. The Washington Monument, completed in 1884, was the tallest building in the world at 555 5 ⅛ feet tall until the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. It was 984 feet.

9. The Lincoln Memorial has 36 columns to represent each of the states in the Union that existed at the time of Lincoln's assassination. They consist of stones from Georgia, Tennessee, Colorado, Alabama, Indiana, and Massachusetts. The architect, Henry Bacon, used these stones as an example of the beauty created by unity wrought from war.

10. The U.S. Capitol dome displays a 19 feet tall statue of a woman with an eagle's head headdress. It's estimated to weigh 15,000 pounds. It's called the Statue of Freedom.

11. A Scottish architect named William Thornton also designed it.

12. Another interesting fact about the U.S. Capitol is that it has a marble tub in the basement from 1859. At that time, boarding houses in the area had no running water, so bathing was done at work. You can see it when you tour the building.

13. The most extensive library in the world is the Library of Congress. 12,000 or so items are added daily, with an estimated 162 million items enclosed.

14. The National Archives houses the original U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, all available for viewing to the public.

15. The Smithsonian National Zoo is home to 1800 animals from 300 different species.

16. The renowned Smithsonian Institution Museums contains almost 138 million specimens, art, and objects.

17. Georgetown, the oldest part of Washington DC, existed in 1751. It was around 40 years before George Washington created our capital.

18. Washington, DC gets more rainfall than Seattle! It averages 39 inches a year!

This is but a small list of interesting facts and places to see in Washington, DC. All of the following buildings holds a tremendous amount of history, facts, trivia and more to explore.

Smithsonian Museums

Lincoln Monument

Washington Monument

Jefferson Memorial

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

New International Spy Museum

National Law Enforcement Museum

Museum of the Bible

National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum

Madame Tussauds Wax Museum

National Museum of the American Indian

National Building Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

National Children’s Museum

Saint John Paul II National Shrine

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

National Postal Museum

Smithsonian's National Zoo

Library of Congress

National Geographic Museum

National Air and Space Museum