February 21, 1885: The Washington Monument is dedicated, on what will become known as the National Mall in Washington, the District of Columbia. It had been a long time in coming.
George Washington was been Commander of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, winning the War of the American Revolution. He was President of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. And he was the 1st President of the United States, serving from April 30, 1789 to March 4, 1797. He died in 1799, at the age of 67.
(His term was supposed to begin on March 4, 1789, but, due to the transportation links of the time, the 1st Congress had trouble getting together. Once they counted the Electoral Votes, Washington had to get from his home, Mount Vernon, in Alexandria, Virginia, to what was then the national capital, New York.)
Construction of the national memorial to him, in the new capital city that bore his name, across the Potomac River from Alexandria, began in 1848. But in 1854, the committee tasked with building it ran out of money, and it just sat there, about one-third finished, for years. To this day, a close look reveals where construction started again, in 1877, as shown in the photo at the top.
Fifty American flags, one for each State, fly on a large circle of poles centered on the Monument. In 1999 and 2000, it was renovated, and, with its steel scaffold, was the the centerpiece of D.C.'s Millennium Day celebrations. A 2011 earthquake slightly damaged the monument, and it was closed for repairs until 2014.
January 1, 2000, 12:01 AM
On August 21, 1908, helping journalist Preston Gibson win a $500 bet (about $15,700 in 2022 money), Washington Senators catcher Charles "Gabby" Street caught a ball dropped 555 feet from the top of the Monument.
Since its opening, the Washington Monument has been joined by official memorials to Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower; and memorials to those lost in World War II and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. A World War I memorial is now under construction.
There are also Washington Monuments in Baltimore (a column completed in 1829, before construction on the D.C. one was even planned), Philadelphia (an equestrian statue in front of the Museum of Art), Richmond (equestrian), Milwaukee (a standing statue), and at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York (another equestrian statue).
Newark, New Jersey has 2 prominent statues of Washington, one of him standing next to his horse, in Washington Park, in front of the city's main Public Library and the Newark Museum; and one of him at the head of a massive Wars of America statue in Military Park, downtown.
Washington Park, Newark, New Jersey
In 2013, 214 years after his death, a Presidential Library for him opened on the grounds of Mount Vernon. He's the only President with a State named after him. Among the other things named for him are 31 Counties or County equivalents, 43 townships in Ohio alone, 5 of them in New Jersey; Mount Washington, in New Hampshire, the highest peak in the Eastern U.S.; Lake Washington, on which the biggest city in the State of Washington, Seattle, sits.
Since 1928, Washington's portrait has appeared on America's $1 bill. Since 1932, the 200th Anniversary of his birth, his left profile has appeared on the quarter, the 25-cent coin.
Also, George Washington University in D.C.; Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, Washington and Lee University, also named after Robert E. Lee, in Lexington, Virginia; and Washington University in St. Louis. Also, the George Washington Bridge, connecting the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, which includes George Washington High School, with Fort Lee, New Jersey, named for one of his generals who was a relative of Robert E.; and the George Washington Memorial Parkway, connecting D.C. with Mount Vernon.
And 4 ships have been named the USS George Washington: A frigate that sailed from 1798 to 1802, a World War I transport, a submarine in service from 1959 to 1985, and a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, CVN-73, a.k.a. "The Spirit of Freedom," that has been in service since 1992.
Washington was, of course, the 1st President, and thus the 1st President from Virginia. He is usually listed as 1 of the 3 greatest Presidents, along with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, so he is still the greatest politician from Virginia.
The last surviving member of George Washington's Cabinet was Oliver Wolcott Jr., who served as his Secretary of the Treasury from 1795 to 1797. He lived until 1833.
Among the actors who've played Washington: Will Geer on a 1970 episode of Bewitched, Peter Graves in The Rebels in 1979, Barry Bostwick in 2 CBS TV-movies in the 1980s, Michael McGuire in A More Perfect Union in 1989, Jeff Daniels in The Crossing in 2000, Kelsey Grammer in Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor in 2003, David Morse in John Adams in 2008, Ian Kahn in Turn: Washington's Spies from 2014 to 2017, Damian O'Hare in Timeless in 2016, and Randall Batinkoff in DC's Legends of Tomorrow in 2017.
In a 2014 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, Washington was played by "Nice" Peter Shukoff, against "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist, playing Scottish hero William Wallace, a.k.a. Braveheart.
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February 21, 1885 was a Saturday. Baseball and football were out of season. Hockey was all-amateur. And basketball hadn't yet been invented. So there were no scores on this historic day.
Not in this country, anyway. In England, 3 of the 4 Quarterfinals of the FA Cup were played. (The Football League wouldn't be founded for another 3 years.) Nottingham Forest beat Old Etonians, 2-0 at the Pococks Lane ground, Eton, Berkshire. Notts County and Queen's Park, of Glasgow, Scotland (at the time, permitted to play in England's premier "football" competition) played to a 2-2 draw at Meadow Lane in Nottingham. And Blackburn Rovers beat West Bromwich Albion, 2-0 at the Four Acres Cricket Ground in West Bromwich, outside Birmingham.
On April 4, at the Kennington Oval in Southeast London, Blackburn would beat Queen's Park in the Final, 2-0.
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