Original photo by Pigprox/ Shutterstock
Hidden directly in front of the Washington Monument, encased in brick and tucked under a manhole cover, is another Washington Monument — only in miniature. But this 12-foot-tall replica isn’t in the business of paying homage to one of America’s Founding Fathers. Instead, its purpose is much more down-to-earth; specifically, measuring the Earth. This hidden monolith is actually a geodetic control point, one of some 1.5 million such markers across the country that are used as part of NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (NGS). These points give mapmakers, engineers, surveyors, and project managers a body of fixed and reliable data points across the U.S. to determine location and elevation.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a fibIn the early 1800s, America was in the grips of “Egyptomania,” inspired in part by Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign at the turn of the 19th century. That’s part of why designers of the Washington Monument chose ancient Egyptian obelisks as their architectural muse.
Because this particular point was so close to the Washington Monument when the marker was built in the 1880s, its creators decided to borrow the monument’s likeness. Usually, geodetic control points are little more than metal poles encased in concrete, topped off with a bronze disc saying what kind of mark it is (an azimuth mark, bench mark, gravity mark, etc.). Some markers may also commemorate important moments — one marker on the University of Utah’s campus both honors the 2002 Winter Olympic Games and serves as a control point — and Walt Disney World even has its own network of geodetic markers throughout its parks. Although most people don’t know it’s there, the Washington Monument marker has been used in every NGS survey ever conducted since the early 1900s, and was recently used to remeasure the surrounding area after the 2011 Virginia earthquake. Despite being mostly obsolete in the era of GPS, these markers now help surveyors place GPS-receiver antennas and provide an analog method of checking the accuracy of these systems.
Numbers Don't Lie
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The Washington Monument was the world’s tallest structure before the ______ was finished in 1889.
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The Washington Monument was the world’s tallest structure before the Eiffel Tower was finished in 1889.
The myth of Washington chopping down a cherry tree was a lie to sell books.
The story goes that George Washington’s father, Augustine, gave young Washington a hatchet for his sixth birthday. After discovering a destroyed cherry tree, Augustine questioned his son about whether he had committed the heinous act of planticide. Washington fessed up, saying, “I cannot not tell a lie.” Although the tale has a powerful moral about the value of telling the truth, there’s one problem — it probably never actually happened. As the leader of the Continental Army and the nation’s first president, Washington loomed large in the lives of early Americans, and it was a shock when he died unexpectedly at age 67 (possibly from a throat infection) in December 1799. Within a month, Mason Locke Weems — a minister-turned-bookseller — had pitched a biography of the late leader filled with intimate details and morality lessons, and “show[ing] that his unparalleled rise and elevation were due to his Great Virtues.” Published in 1800, The Life of Washington was an instant bestseller. It wasn’t until its fifth printing, in 1806, that the myth of George Washington and the cherry tree emerged. Weems said the story came from an anonymous family friend of Washington’s — not exactly a credible source. Historians agree that the tale is most likely pure fiction, even if it instilled an honorable idea in a fledgling nation.
Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
