On this day, November the 17th, in the year of 1800, the United States Congress, America’s legislative branch consisting of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, met for the first time in the Capitol Building in Washington, District of Columbia, where it still conviens today. 

Previously, Congress met in a multitude of U.S. cities such as Princeton and Trenton, New Jersey, and New York, New York. Though, the most significant location was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Congress met multiple times and housed Congress for its final stay out of Washington for a duration of ten years (U.S. Senate).

With construction not complete and some members not being able to get there on time due to winter storms, first impressions of the new capital weren’t pleasant.

In what may have been the first example of “Washington bashing” (the act of speaking down on Washington [D.C.] and its state), a senator commented (sarcastically) that D.C. wasn’t so bad, saying it needed “houses, cellars, kitchens, well informed men, amiable women, and other little trifles of this kind” to be perfect (U.S. Senate) (Politico).