1. In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War, visited Washington and was honored with a banquet at the White House hosted by President James Monroe.

2. In 1865, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, the last surviving full general of the Confederate Army, surrendered to Union forces in Galveston, Texas, effectively ending the Civil War in the Western Theater.

3. In 1913, the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC, with President William Howard Taft, former President Theodore Roosevelt, and the sculptor, Daniel Chester French, among the speakers.

4. In 1954, the French-Finnish composer and conductor, Jean Sibelius, received an honorary degree from George Washington University, the first university to grant him such an honor.

5. In 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp honoring jazz pianist and composer, Duke Ellington, a native of Washington, DC, on what would have been his 99th birthday.