Jefferson Memorial

The Jefferson Memorial sits on a peninsula of the Tidal Basin in Washington and was built between 1939 and 1943 by John Russell Pope as a classical rotunda modelled on the Roman Pantheon. Inside stands a 5.8-metre bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson by Rudulph Evans, surrounded by four inscribed panels with passages from the Declaration of Independence, Virginia's religious freedom statute and Jefferson's letters. The choice of site was controversial because it required moving hundreds of Japanese cherry trees, whose descendants now bloom along the paths each spring. During the National Cherry Blossom Festival the memorial is the capital's most photographed sight. From the colonnade visitors look straight across the basin to the Washington Monument and the White House.