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Fascinating and Lesser Known People Who Changed American History

Khalid Elhassan May 5, 2020 33 min

Normandy landings - Operation Overlord — Men of the 320th in Normandy. YouTube

38. Commissioning Jefferson’s First Statue in Washington

Thomas Jefferson’s statue in the US Capitol’s Rotunda. Architect of the Capitol

Levy first expressed his admiration for Thomas Jefferson while he was still a lieutenant in the US Navy. Decrying the lack of a statue of the third president in the US Capitol building, he went ahead and commissioned one.

The Jefferson statue was presented to Congress in 1834, and it still stands in the Rotunda to this day- the only one furnished with private funds. That was just the start of demonstrating an appreciation that, as seen below, culminated in the purchase and preservation of Jefferson’s home.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.