2021 United States Capitol car attack

The Progress of Civilization is a marble pediment above the entrance to the Senate wing of the United States Capitol building designed by the sculptor Thomas Crawford. An allegorical personification of America stands at the center of the pediment. To her right, a white woodsman clears the wilderness inhabited by a Native American boy, father, mother, and child. The left side of the pediment depicts a soldier, a merchant, two schoolchildren, a teacher with her pupil, and a mechanic. When it was originally completed, the pediment received positive reactions in the press. However, it has attracted more critical commentary from scholars since the 1990s. The US Capitol building underwent a restoration program in 2016 which led to new discoveries about the pediment.

Constitution Avenue is a major east–west street in the northwest and northeast quadrants of the city of Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was originally known as B Street, and its western section was greatly lengthened and widened between 1925 and 1933. It received its current name on February 26, 1931, though it was almost named Jefferson Avenue in honor of Thomas Jefferson.Constitution Avenue's western half defines the northern border of the National Mall and extends from the United States Capitol to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. Its eastern half runs through the neighborhoods of Capitol Hill and Kingman Park before it terminates at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. Many federal departmental headquarters, memorials, and museums line Constitution Avenue's western segment.

The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The Senate is composed of senators, each of whom represents a single state in its entirety. Each of the 50 states is equally represented by two senators who serve staggered terms of six years, for a total of 100 senators. From 1789 to 1913, senators were appointed by legislatures of the states they represented. They have been elected by popular vote since the 1913 ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment. As the upper chamber of Congress, the Senate has several powers of advice and consent which are unique to it. These include the approval of treaties, and the confirmation of Cabinet secretaries, federal judges (including Federal Supreme Court justices), flag officers, regulatory officials, ambassadors, other federal executive officials and federal uniformed officers. If no candidate receives a majority of electors for vice president, the duty falls to the Senate to elect one of the top two recipients of electors for that office. The Senate conducts trials of those impeached by the House. The Senate has typically been considered both a more deliberative and prestigious body than the House of Representatives due to its longer terms, smaller size, and statewide constituencies, which historically led to a more collegial and less partisan atmosphere.The Senate chamber is located in the north wing of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The vice president of the United States serves as presiding officer and president of the Senate by virtue of that office, despite not being a senator, and has a vote only if the Senate is equally divided. In the vice president's absence, the president pro tempore, who is traditionally the senior member of the party holding a majority of seats, presides over the Senate. In the early 1920s, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began. The Senate's legislative and executive business is managed and scheduled by the Senate majority leader.

The United States Senate Vice Presidential Bust Collection is a series of 46 busts in the United States Capitol, each one bearing the likenesses of a vice president of the United States. Each sculpture, from John Adams to Dick Cheney, honors the role of the vice president as both a member of the executive branch and as president of the Senate. The Joint Committee on the Library, acting under a resolution of May 13, 1886, was the first to commission busts of the vice presidents to occupy the niches in the new Senate Chamber. After the first 20 busts filled the niches surrounding the Chamber, later additions were placed throughout the Senate wing of the Capitol. The collection is incomplete, since the busts of former vice presidents Joe Biden and Mike Pence are in the process of being created. The bust of Kamala Harris will not be commissioned until she leaves office.

The United States Capitol Complex is a group of twenty buildings and facilities in Washington, D.C., that are used by the federal government of the United States. The buildings and grounds within the complex are managed and supervised by the Architect of the Capitol.

The Ohio Clock (or Senate Clock) is a clock in the United States Capitol. The United States Senate ordered the clock from Thomas Voigt in 1815, and it has stood in or near the Senate Chamber since 1859.

The Old Supreme Court Chamber is a room on the ground floor of the North Wing of the United States Capitol. From 1800 to 1806, the room was the lower half of the first United States Senate chamber. After construction of its vaulted ceiling divided it from the Senate chamber above, from 1810 to 1860 it served as the courtroom for the Supreme Court of the United States. The court then moved upstairs when the Senate moved to its present chambers, and this room became the law library. It has since been refurbished to look as it did when it served for court hearings.

The United States Capitol crypt is the large circular room filled with forty neoclassical Doric columns directly beneath the United States Capitol rotunda. It was built originally to support the rotunda as well as offer an entrance to Washington's Tomb. It currently serves as a museum and a repository for thirteen statues of the National Statuary Hall Collection.

The United States Capitol rotunda is the tall central rotunda of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. It has been described as the Capitol's "symbolic and physical heart". Built between 1818 and 1824, the rotunda is located below the Capitol dome, which was built between 1857 and 1866. The rotunda is connected by corridors leading south to the House of Representatives and north to the Senate chambers. To the immediate south is the semi-circular National Statuary Hall, which was the House of Representatives chamber until 1857. To the northeast is the Old Senate Chamber, used by the Senate until 1859 and by the Supreme Court until 1935. The rotunda is 96 feet (29 m) in diameter, rises 48 feet (15 m) to the top of its original walls and 180 feet 3 inches (54.94 m) to the canopy of the dome, and is usually visited daily by thousands of people. The space is a national showcase of art, and includes numerous historical paintings and sculptures. It is also used for ceremonial events authorized by concurrent resolution, including the lying in state of honored dead.

The 1983 U.S. Senate bombing was a bomb explosion at the United States Senate on November 7, 1983, as a protest against United States military involvement in Lebanon and Grenada. The attack led to heightened security in the DC metropolitan area, and the inaccessibility of certain parts of the Senate Building. Six members of the radical far-left Armed Resistance Unit (also known as Resistance Conspiracy) were arrested in May 1988 and charged with the bombing, as well as related bombings of Fort McNair and the Washington Navy Yard which occurred on April 25, 1983, and April 20, 1984, respectively.

The United States Capitol features a dome situated above its rotunda. The dome is 288 feet (88 m) in height and 96 feet (29 m) in diameter. Designed by Thomas U. Walter, the fourth Architect of the Capitol, it was constructed between 1855 and 1866 at a cost of $1,047,291 (equivalent to $15.6 million in 2021).The dome is not stone, but rather cast iron carefully painted to appear to be made of the same stone as the main capitol building. It is actually two domes, one inside the other, and the total weight is 9.1 million pounds (4,100 t). The dome's cast iron frame was supplied and constructed by the iron foundry Janes, Fowler, Kirtland & Co. in the Bronx, New York. The dome marks the origin on street maps of Washington, D.C. A detailed look at the dome and its recent restoration can be found here.

The Capitol Grounds a.k.a. Capitol Park (I), was a baseball field in Washington, D.C. The grounds were the home field for the Washington Nationals of the Union Association during the league's only season in 1884. The ballpark had a seating capacity of 6,000, and was where the Russell Senate Office Building stands today.The ball field was bounded by C Street NE (north); Delaware Avenue NE (west): B Street (now Constitution Avenue) NE (south); and First Street NE (east); just northeast of the Capitol building. After dropping out of the Union Association, the club joined the minor Eastern League for the 1885 season. The club regrouped as a new entry to the National League in 1886, and moved a few blocks north to the larger Capitol Park (II).