I'm going to tell you about four obscure monuments near the National Mall that you might not even know about.
Hello! Welcome to Trip Hacks DC. My name is Rob.
I'm a tour guide here in the nation's capital.
If you're coming to Washington DC and you're looking for the best tips, tricks, and hacks for exploring the city, make sure to subscribe to
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And if you're interested in signing up for a Trip Hacks DC tour,
head on over to www.triphacksdc.com afterwards, to see the tours that I offer. In this video
I'm going to tell you about four
really interesting monuments near the National Mall that you can come and explore when you visit. If you've been to any of these before
leave a comment on this video and let everyone know whether you think they're worth a visit when you come. Otherwise
let's get started...
First up is the Albert Einstein Memorial, located only about one block to the north of the Lincoln Memorial.
This is actually a private monument located on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences. It was unveiled in
1979, a hundred years after Albert Einstein's date of birth. The statute depicts a 12-foot tall Einstein in a nice
casual seated pose.
It's a really cool photo spot, especially for kids, because climbing all over the statue is actually encouraged.
They even advertise a
hashtag that you can use when you post your photos. If you look on the floor in front of Einstein you will see
2,700 little metal studs.
These represent the stars,
planets and moons on the night that the statue was dedicated. And a little bonus hack, or Easter Egg for this monument,
is that if you stand
directly in the center, look right at Albert Einstein, and speak
you will hear a really cool echo chamber effect.
You really need to do it in person to know exactly how cool it is. This next monument
you might recognize from the background if you watch my collaboration videos with Wolters World.
This is called the District of Columbia World War Memorial or the DC War Memorial for short. It honors the approximately
26,000 residents of the District of Columbia who served during World War I and on the base of the memorial you will see the about
500 residents of DC who died serving in World War I. This monument was built way ahead of its time.
It opened in 1931.
The next war memorial, the Vietnam Memorial,
wouldn't open for over 50 years after this. A lot of people think it's based on the Jefferson Memorial because they both have a beautiful
rounded dome,
but the DC War Memorial was
actually built over a decade earlier than Jefferson, and it was actually meant to resemble a bandstand.One of the first
performances held at this monument was a performance by John Philip Sousa, who you surely know if you're a fan of
patriotic music. Nowadays, this is one of my personal
favorite memorials on the National Mall
because it's one of the few places that you can come and not have the huge crowds that you'll experience at the other
memorials. This next monument is officially called the Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence,
though a lot of people, including me, shorten it to just the Signers Memorial.
It's located on a tiny island in the middle of a pond located just to the west of the Vietnam Memorial.
Walk across the little footbridge and you will see recreated signatures of the 56 men who signed our Declaration of Independence in 1776.
A few names you'll surely recognize are John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and a few others.
The names are organized by the state where the signer lived,
so if you're looking for one in particular make sure you know where he came from.
The last one on my list is the George Mason memorial. George Mason is
relatively unknown outside of Virginia, and his memorial stands almost literally in the shadows of the Jefferson Memorial.
He is sometimes called
America's forgotten founding father, because he was quite influential to the early development of our new country; but nowadays
most people have no idea who he was or what he did. George Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights,
which I will leave a link to that text down in the video description. If you read it and think, wow
this sounds a lot like the current U.S. Bill of Rights,
that's because a lot of people credit George Mason for coming up with the ideas that we used to create our Bill of Rights.
When you visit you'll see the statue of George Mason and
some of his quotes nearby. And if you read those quotes, you will understand why George Mason was so influential during his day,
even if he's not so well remembered now. And that's it!
Thank you for watching this video.
If you found it helpful you can subscribe to this channel by clicking on the Trip Hacks DC logo
which is popping up right now at the bottom of the screen, and if you're coming to DC and want to sign up for a
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you can click on the Capitol dome on the left side of my head,
that'll send you over to www.triphacksdc.com where you can see all of the tours that I offer. Enjoy your trip!