About 2,500 years ago the ancient Romans placed a temple to the god Jupiter on one of their city’s seven hills. That temple ended up giving its name to the hill itself: in Latin, Capitolium (from the word for “head”); in Italian, Capitolino; and eventually, in English, Capitoline.
Many years later, when settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, needed to rebuild their burnt down government hall in 1699, they decided to call their new one “by the name of Capitoll.” This usage didn’t spread until in the early 1790s, when the nascent U.S. government was planning out what we think of, rightfully, as the other Washington.
In
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