Lincoln Memorial

Just a few months after the death of JFK President Lyndon Johnson led candle-carrying crowds in ceremonies concluding national mourning for the slain president. Half a century of debate followed Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 before Henry Bacon’s classical design was chosen in 1911.

The ‘cage’ surrounding Lincoln has one Doric column representing each of the 36 states in the Union at the time of his death, their names inscribed above. The 19ft-high marble statue of Lincoln himself, by Daniel Chester French, peers out over the Reflecting Pool, his facial expression seeming to change at different times of day.