To take this virtual tour of Washington, D.C., please begin by clicking on the number "1" on the map below.  Continue the tour by clicking on the rest on the numbers on the map.  Enjoy your visit to some very important places in Washington, D.C.!

1. The Washington Monument

For more information, please see http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/wa_monument.html

Our second stop is the White House.  George W. and Laura Bush live there now and so have all our presidents (except for George Washington).  The address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It really is a big white house surrounded by green lawns and colorful gardens.  

You can find out more information about the White House by visiting this web site just for kids:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/index.html

Be sure to take Spotty's White House Tour to visit several rooms in the White House.

For a map of the tour and more information, please see http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/whtour/

The third stop on our tour is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial... or the Wall...as it is often called. This black granite wall, which was built in 1982, includes the names of over 58,000 American soldiers who died or disappeared during the Vietnam War.

The Wall is only several inches tall when it begins and includes a single name of the first soldier killed in Vietnam in 1959. The Wall, which is 246 feet in length, rises in height to include the thousands of names of those who died during the Vietnam War in the 1960's and 1970's.  

Along the Wall you will see people using a paper and crayon to make a rubbing of a loved one's name. The beautiful memorial was designed by Maya Ying Lin when she was a 21 year old college student at Yale University.

Nearby are several dramatic statues of US soldiers and the US women who served in Vietnam as medical personnel.

For more information, please see: http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/vietnam.html

http://www.nps.gov/vive/home.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial was built to resemble a Greek temple.  It has 36 columns, one for each state at the time of Lincoln's death.  The names of the 48 states in the Union (when the memorial was completed in 1922) are carved on the walls, above the columns, along the outside of the memorial.  A plaque honoring Alaska and Hawaii is just outside the building.

Inside the memorial there is a huge statue of Lincoln sitting  in a chair.  The statue is 19 feet high and it weighs 175 tons!  Inscribed on the south wall of the monument is the Gettysburg Address.  Above it is a mural of an angel freeing a slave.  Etched into the north wall is Lincoln's Second Inaugural speech.  Above this is a mural representing the unity of the North and the South.

For more information, please see:
http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/lincoln.html

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/korea.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/fdr/front.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt_Memorial

http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa061401a.htm

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/jefferson.html

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc73.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Memorial

http://tourofdc.org/monuments/jefferson-memorial/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_Memorial_Museum

National Air and Space Museum

Smithsonian Kids (flash)

Smithsonian Education

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/capitol.html

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc76.htm

Virtual Tour of the U.S. Capitol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Capitol

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/supreme_court.html

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/