Here Is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History

by Andrew Carroll

who was president of Russia at the time and theoretically in control of all their nuclear weapons, got hammered, slipped past his security detail, and wandered out of Blair House in his underwear. He was found by our Secret Service agents stumbling around Pennsylvania Avenue half naked trying to hail a cab. When the agents started escorting him back inside to, among other things, avert an international scandal, Yeltsin apparently threw a small tantrum, claiming he just wanted to find some pizza. Taylor Branch asked Clinton how the situation resolved itself, and the president shrugged and said, ‘We got him a pizza.’ ” We reach the Capitol, and I tell Megan and Stacy I’ve been quizzing friends who are longtime Washingtonians about their knowledge of the Statue of Freedom, the highest, most visible statue in our nation’s capital and an iconic image of American independence. “Overall the consensus is that it’s either some Roman goddess or a Native American princess—possibly Sacagawea. I didn’t know myself until I read the Architect of the Capitol’s website, which said the model was just an anonymous ‘classical female figure.’ ” “Well, it’s got a Roman soldier’s helmet crowned with Native American feathers, so the confusion is understandable,” Megan says. “The original design actually called for a ‘liberty cap,’ but Jefferson Davis, who was secretary of war at the time, vehemently opposed the idea because it was associated with the antislavery movement.” Sculpted in Rome by an ...