1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
Federal News Network presents a daily update of important moments in the history of the U.S. government.
On July 16, 1790, Congress declared that a swampy, humid, muddy and mosquito-infested site on the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia would be the nation’s permanent capital. “Washington,” in the newly designated federal “District of Columbia,” was named after the leader of the American Revolution and the country’s first president: George Washington, who saw the area’s potential economic and accessibility benefits due to the proximity of navigable rivers. He had been in office just over one year by this point, and asked French architect and city planner Pierre L’Enfant to design the capital. In 1793, the first cornerstones of the president’s mansion, which was eventually renamed the “White House,” were laid.
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