LINCOLN MEMORIAL, Lincoln Memorial

Hello, my name’s Rick, and I’m your personal guide. Along with MyWoWo, I’d like to welcome you to one of the wonders of the world, the Lincoln Memorial.

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, and is remembered for prompting the American Civil War, which led to the abolition of slavery.

Inaugurated in 1922, the huge construction is inspired by the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. It is 58 meters wide, 31 meters deep and 30 meters high, and was designed by the architect Henry Bacon. The exterior is in exquisite Yule marble, a particularly bright variety quarried only in Colorado, and is decorated with 36 Doric columns, one for each American state at the time of Lincoln’s death. If you look closely, you’ll see that the names of the 36 states are engraved at the top of each column. The names of those added subsequently can be seen on the back wall, and there is a plate remembering the last two to become part of the USA, Alaska and Hawaii. If you look carefully at the columns and the walls, you’ll notice that they lean inwards, so as to avoid - as in the Greek temples - a distortion of the perspective that would have made the building broader at the top....