I'm here with Mark from Wolters World and I'm going to ask him some trivia questions to see how much he knows about Washington DC.
Hello! Welcome to Trip Hacks DC, my name is Rob, and this is Mark from Wolters World.
Mark is a world traveler who has a YouTube channel with 1,500 travel videos right now that you should definitely check out,
I will leave a link to it in the video description.
And in this video, I'm going to ask Mark some trivia questions about Washington DC.
I actually have a new trivia tour,
which is a tour of the monuments and memorials here on the National Mall where I ask trivia questions as we go along the route.
So, let's see how well I do. Okay Mark, so this first one is a pretty easy one to get you warmed up.
What is the one thing that you should never do on a Metro escalator? Stand on the left? That is right.
You should never, ever,
stand on the left side of a Metro escalator. And Mark's going to have a video about the don'ts of DC and I hope he puts
this one as number one. Oh it's number one. You never want to stand on the left side of an escalator. Metro etiquette
is that when you're walking, you walk on the left, and when you're standing you stand on the right. And that's just something that you
should know before you come so that you don't,
you know, annoy any locals and so that you can prove that you watch Trip Hacks DC or Wolters World and you know exactly what you're
doing. Yes. Before you arrive.
Okay. So the next question is, speaking of metro systems, Washington DC actually has two underground subway systems, believe it or not,
the Metro, that we just talked about, and the second one, which is underneath what landmark?
The Washington Monument? Oh good guess, but sorry you didn't get that one.
The Smithsonian?
No no, it's not like in the movies. There's actually a subway underneath the Capitol. Some Congress members and Senators can use the little Capitol subway system to get from their office
building
into the Capitol chambers where they would go for a vote.
Can I go on that?
You actually can go if you contact your Congress member's office or Senator's office
And they're willing to take you on the Capitol subway. You can go in there and you can go do it.
Dude I had no idea!
A lot of the Capitol complex is actually underground. There's the subway, but there's also a lot of underground walkways
so it's actually pretty rare to see a congress member walking from his or her office
to the Capitol to take a vote or go into the chambers or something like that. Okay
so the next question is about the layout of the city.
The city was designed by a person named Pierre Charles L'Enfant and he was not an American,
do you know what country he hailed from? Hmm? Sounds like it would be French. That's correct. He was French.
He was actually born in Paris and came over to the United States during the Revolutionary War, and then he was commissioned by George
Washington and the other early leaders of our country to design the city.
So one of the things that most people notice about L'enfant's plan for the city is the street grid,
which has the north and south streets, east and west streets, and then the diagonal streets that are named after states, and the traffic circles
around the city. Some of the other things that L'enfant did, for example, was to put the Capitol building on the point of highest elevation
in the old city and that's why it is called "Capitol Hill" because it is actually on a hill and
so when you go visit you're going to walk up a big hill and that is all part of L'enfant's plan.
So this next question is about the history of the city. A lot of history is here in the city, but something specifically happened in
1814, do you know what that was? Is that when the White House burned down? That's right!
That's when the British came to Washington DC and they burned both the Capitol and the White House,
and one of the things that the British did unfortunately for us, was that they went into the Library of Congress
which was in the Capitol at the time, and they used the books as fuel when they were burning down the Capitol.
So both the Capitol and the White House were damaged during the War of 1812
but we did rebuild both of them and this is still the capital of the country.
OK so this next one has to do with the fact that Washington DC, as you know, is not a state,
but we do have a bigger population than two states. Any idea what those states are?
Montana and Wyoming? Well, you got one of the two. Wyoming is the first and Vermont is the second.
And we are quickly gaining on Alaska. So the population of the District of Columbia and 2018 is about
700,000 people. I did not know that. Now you do. Oh, there you go makes more sense for the statehood thing.
So on that same topic, why do the license plates of cars registered in Washington DC say "end taxation without representation"?
Because you have no representation in Congress so you can't really...
you're not represented. Right.
So it's a it's a bit of a protest because the city does issue the license plates and we don't have a congressional
representative in Congress that can vote and we don't have two senators like every other state does, and so that's a little bit of a
local protest we print "end taxation without representation" on the license plates because just like you I pay a federal income tax,
but we don't have anyone to represent us. Yeah because I saw that on the license plate
I thought it was a joke at first but then I was I saw it again and again and I'm like oh,
that's not a joke. That's a legit thing. Yeah, definitely not a joke, a lot of people take it pretty seriously.
Yeah if you live here that's no joke. That's true, so yeah.
Mark's doing pretty well,
he's got more questions right than he's gotten wrong so far, but he's brought in some reinforcements for these last couple of questions.
So the first one we're going, I'm gonna ask and whoever gets closest to the right answer, just like on the Price is Right
gets it right. So the question is: how tall is the Washington Monument?
He said a hundred feet. He said 200 feet.
100 or 200 feet that's his answer. What do you think Caleb?
500?
And Mark, what do you think?
I'm going to go with 501 feet. Oh Mark got it right (or at least closest). It is
555 feet tall. It is the tallest building in the city and because of the Height of Buildings Act of 1910
We don't have any buildings that are even close to as tall as it. I got one more. So
When they built the Washington Monument, before they finished they placed a precious metal in the little pyramid
that's at the top of the Washington Monument.
So what metal did they choose to stash up there?
Copper? Good guess.
Silver and marble
Okay, you guessed silver. Silver is a really good guess but the answer is actually aluminum, which in the 1800s
was a newly discovered precious metal and at that time per ounce it cost about the same as
silver. And of course
it did not appreciate nearly as well as silver and now we
associate it with wrapping up leftover pizza and a can of soda or something like that.
But at the time it was quite a big deal.
So I want to thank the Wolters family for coming on this video and answering some trivia questions with me and if you want to come on
a tour and answer trivia questions with me you can head on over to www.triphacksdc.com and see the trivia tour and all
of the tours that I offer. Thanks guys!