220 years ago last Friday

Washington D.C was established as the capital of the United States of America.
This was fine for awhile — the lousy location, swampy low ground next to a tidal river infested with malarial and yellow-fever carrying mosquitoes, hotter than hammered Hell in the summer and damp and chilly during the winter, coupled with the lousy transportation systems of the day, tended to keep government small and our congresscritters and senialators back home actually working for a living. The President’s reward for winning election was a four-year sentence living in this turgid bog.
Unfortunately, Willis Carrier* invented air conditioning in 1902, and Washington took to it like files to feces.
We have never been truly free since.
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* I did not know this, even after working in the HVAC business for years, but Willis Carrier and I share a birthday. Of course, it was also the date the Japanese kido butai departed the Home Islands for the Pearl Harbor attack 🙂 Which, hmm, involved carriers, too!