Siege on the US Capitol was first of its kind in centuries. What happened last time?
Scenes at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday were unlike any witnessed at the heart of American democracy in more than two centuries.
Hundreds of rioters in support of President Donald Trump — who has continually made unfounded and baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election — stormed the Capitol as Congress was certifying the results of the Electoral College vote. The mob broke through police and breached the building, scaling walls and breaking windows as Americans watched in horror.
Photo and video showed the rioters laying siege on the Capitol Rotunda, breaking into the U.S. Senate chamber and reaching the doors of the U.S. House of Representatives chamber — interrupting the process of affirming the results of the election as lawmakers were evacuated from both chambers.
One woman was fatally shot during the attack, and three others died due to medical emergencies on Capitol grounds. More than a dozen law enforcement officers were injured and at least 52 people have been arrested as of Thursday morning.
By Wednesday night, lawmakers returned to the Capitol to carry on with their certification, officially declaring President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the winners of the 2020 election.
But the attack marks the first of its kind at the building in more than 200 years.
Burning of the Capitol in 1814
Not since 1814 — during the war of 1812 — has a group breached the U.S. Capitol building, Samuel Holliday, director of operations and scholarship at the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, told CNN.
That August, British troops under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cockburn and Major General Robert Ross, marched into Washington, D.C., around 8 p.m. following their earlier victory over American troops in Bladensburg, Maryland.
The troops torched portions of the city, including rooms in the Capitol building in retaliation for Americans burning the Canadian capital at York, according to Architect of the Capitol.
Back then, the Capitol was home to the House and Senate chambers, the Library of Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Troops targeted the major rooms in the building, some of which were severely damaged. They started bonfires using furniture in both what is now the National Statuary Hall and in what was the Supreme Court chamber.
The structure, however, remained intact as it was constructed with fire-proof materials that allowed it to withstand the attack.
“Today, to see the sandstone areas of the building that survived the fire, make your way to the Small House Rotunda on the second floor of the Capitol and look at Latrobe’s variation on the Corinthian columns adorned with water leaves, installed in 1807,” the Architect of the Capitol says.
History of violence at the Capitol
Other violent incidents have taken place at the building, though none like those seen in 1814 or Wednesday.
The building is “relatively accessible to the public” and has been the “scene of bombings, a presidential assassination attempt and countless demonstrations” since its construction, The Guardian reports.
Bombs have been detonated in the Capitol in 1915, 1971 and 1983, according to PolitiFact. The 1983 incident, in which the bomb went off on the second floor of the Capitol’s north wing, led to increased security throughout the Capitol.
In 1954, three men and one woman belonging to the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party entered the gallery armed with handguns and opened fire on the House floor, injuring five lawmakers.
Most recently, prior to Wednesday, two Capitol police officers were killed when an “armed assailant” rushed through a security checkpoint at the Capitol in 1998.
But none of these incidents were “similar to the scale” of what happened Wednesday, Holliday told PolitiFact.
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 9:12 AM with the headline "Siege on the US Capitol was first of its kind in centuries. What happened last time?."
