The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court in the nation and the federal judicial arm of the three-pronged American system of government. The court—often called by the acronym SCOTUS—holds an enormous responsibility: to ensure that the nation's laws—and its lawmakers—reflect the principles established by the founders in the U.S. Constitution.

The iconic United States Capitol is home to the “houses” of Congress: the country’s two legislative bodies—the Senate and the House of Representatives. This is where the nation’s great ideas make their way into law, usually after a whole lot of squabbling between Democrats and Republicans!

The National Mall is the magnetic hub of the United States of America. A place of symbol and symmetry, memorialization and motivation, the Mall is home to scores of museums and research centers, monuments, parks, and promenades. You’ll also find here the iconic institutions of government that power the “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave,” helping to earn the Mall one of its nicknames, the “stage of American democracy.”

The National Air and Space Museum houses a truly awe-inspiring collection of artifacts from the history of flight. The Wright brothers' original Wright Flyer—the very first successful airplane—will greet you near the entrance. Inside, you’ll find many other famous “firsts in flight,” including the Spirit of Saint Louis—in which Charles Lindbergh flew the world's first transatlantic voyage—the Apollo 11 Columbia command module, Neil Armstrong’s space suit, and the Bell X-1, the first plane to break the sound barrier.

Ginevra de' Benci was only about sixteen years old when her father, a wealthy Florentine banker, hired an aspiring young artist to paint her portrait. The resulting painting is, today, the only work by Leonardo da Vinci in an American gallery, and it's one of the stars of the beautiful building you can see at America's National Gallery of Art. Da Vinci’s revolutionary technique in this simple portrait would open wide the doors to the future of Western art.

If you have a curious mind, you’ll want to spend all day exploring the exhibits at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. The museum contains a whopping 150 million specimens from across the globe. Traveling through its halls you can hold a cockroach, watch archaeologists preparing fossils, travel the ocean in a state-of-the-art submergible, ogle a 168-carat emerald-and-diamond necklace, hang out in a room full of live butterflies, and dine under a 52-foot-long shark! (Don’t worry—it’s just a model.) And then there are the museum’s prehistoric stars: the Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Diplodocus, and the great woolly mammoth! Don’t leave without a visit to the Mammals Gallery: a truly “wild” place with over 270 specimens of the world’s marvelous mammals, including a tiny pink armadillo.

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History is one massive prop room behind the great stage of American history. Inside, you’ll find the gunboat Philadelphia, which sunk in battle in the earliest days of the American Revolution; George Washington’s dress uniform; the desk where Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence; and the top hat President Abraham Lincoln wore the night of his assassination. You’ll see a light bulb from an 1879 public demonstration of Thomas Edison's new electric light; the original Greensboro, North Carolina, lunch counter that started the sit-in movement for racial desegregation; and pieces of the World Trade Center recovered after the September 11th attacks.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is one of the most popular of the Smithsonian’s 19 museums—and also its newest. It was finally opened in 2016, after decades of efforts to give African American history its own place to be explored. The museum is nicknamed the Blacksonian—and it’s meant in the best way. Indeed, everything about it was designed to stand apart from the rest of the Smithsonian’s museums and galleries—including the building itself.

The first U.S. president, George Washington, planned the construction of the White House. Although it wasn’t completed in time for Washington to live in it, it’s been occupied by every president since him. Today, the White House is one of the most protected buildings in the world. (That’s why you have to admire it from such a distance.) But there was a moment in U.S. history when this building—and all that it symbolized—was nearly lost. If you’d been standing here on the night of August 24, 1814, you would have been engulfed in a sea of smoke. That was the height of the War of 1812, a war that many say was the country’s second fight for independence.

The National World War II Memorial's 56 giant granite pillars honor all Americans—both military and civilian—of the U.S. states and territories who served during World War II. On the side of the memorial closest to the famous Reflecting Pool, you’ll find the Freedom Wall. Four thousand and forty-eight stars spangle the wall, but though that number itself is impressive to behold, each one of them represents a staggering one hundred Americans lost in battle during the Second World War.

Each spring, the water of the Tidal Basin is covered with magical pink blossoms that rain down from the thousands of historic cherry trees around the basin. A two-mile walking trail around the basin will take you to a memorial honoring Thomas Jefferson—the founding father, intellectual influencer, author of the Declaration of Independence, and third president of the United States. The loop meanders past a memorial celebrating Martin Luther King Jr., the iconic leader of the Civil Rights movement and nonviolent protest pioneer. It also takes you to the inspiring memorial to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led the nation with optimism and courage through the Great Depression and World War II.

This is a memorial to what’s been called “The Forgotten War”: the Korean War. And like the war itself, many visitors forget this memorial when planning their visit to Washington. But that’s a big mistake. The Korean War Veterans Memorial is one of the most moving in this city of memorials, and most who do visit call it their favorite of all.

It was a Vietnam veteran named Jan Scruggs who envisioned the Vietnam Veterans Memorial—and who led the raising of over eight million dollars in private funds for its construction. But opposition to the design—called nihilistic, dark, and inhuman by some critics—led many to threaten withdrawing their contributions. A compromise was reached through the addition of a flagstaff and a realistic bronze sculpture. That sculpture portrays three figures—representing young American servicemen of every race—looking upon the Memorial Wall in memory of their fallen brothers in arms.

The Lincoln Memorial is widely considered the most sacred of all the sites you can visit in Washington. The larger-than-life size of President Lincoln’s likeness is indicative of the role he played in America’s dramatic history. If the statue stood up, it would be 28 feet tall! A fitting depiction, for amid the schism of Civil War, Lincoln held together the founders’ dream of a United States of America—and carried that dream far beyond its original conception.