First Hispanic Astronaut

I INTRODUCTION
Washington, DC, city and district, the capital of the United States of America . The city of Washington has the same boundaries as the District of Columbia (DC), a federal territory established in 1790 as a site of permanent capital of the new nation. Named after the first U.S. president, George Washington, the city has served since 1800 as the seat of government. It is also at the heart of a dynamic metropolitan region. In the 20th century, Washington, DC, metropolitan area has increased rapidly as the responsibilities of national government increased, both at home and around the world.

The city is situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers and is flanked on the north, east and southeast by Maryland and south-west Virginia. Although the city has retained some aspects of its Southern origin, it has taken a far more cosmopolitan. At the same time, the city struggling with economic and social disparities, and a number of its residential neighborhoods suffer from poverty and crime. Washington's climate is hot and humid in summer and cold and wet in winter. The average daily temperature range is -3 ° C (27 ° F) at 8 ° C (46 ° F) in January and 22 ° C (72 ° F) to 31 ° C (88 ° F) in July. The city averages 98 cm (39 inches) of rainfall per year.

WASHINGTON II and its suburbs

An overview of the city
Designated to serve as the permanent seat of the federal government beginning in 1800, the District of Columbia was named for Christopher Columbus. It was created from land ceded by the states of Virginia and Maryland, and incorporated the existing port cities of Alexandria, Virginia, and Georgetown, Maryland. The district was originally 259 square kilometers (100 square miles), or 10 square miles, as established under the Residence Act of 1790. The site of the central city was designed by French architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant in 1791. The rest is an open area that extends north of the border with Maryland. It was designated as Washington County. In 1846, Congress returned the part of the Federal District, which had originally been ceded by Virginia.

In 1871, the cities of Washington and Georgetown were consolidated with Washington County to become Washington, DC, making the city, county, and the Federal District and the same. Washington, DC has a total area of 176 km (68 square miles), and the Washington metropolitan area, which in addition to Washington, DC, contains 24 counties in neighboring states of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, has a total area of 17,920 km ² (6,920 miles square).

In its plan for the city of Washington, L'Enfant attempted to symbolically represent the new United States and its republican government. It was a great place to each of what were then the main elements of the Government Executive and the legislature. It also featured the States to give their name to broad diagonal avenues. These he arranged both according to geography and the prominence of each state in the process of nation building. Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania and in particular, with its associations with both the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Constitution, has won the most important. Avenues named after other states with a predominant role in the ratification of the Constitution, notably Delaware and New Jersey, intersected at the Capitol. In addition, L'Enfant hoped that the intersection of diagonal avenues with a grid of straight streets of the city of number and letter provide squares where each state would locate facilities, thereby giving them the same symbolic importance in the capital they him.