Washington, DC's Capitol Building is the home of the United States Congress. The House is on the left, the Senate on the right.

The rotunda of the Capitol, under the dome, is one of the most impressive spaces in the building that houses the legislative branch of government.

The Speaker of the House is one of the most powerful figures in the United States government. The Current Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California, is the first woman ever to fill the role.

The 435 members of the House of Representatives meet in this ornate hall inside the US Capitol Building. The chamber is also used for joint meetings of Congress, such as the annual State of the Union address given by the President.

In one of the most notorious incidents in the history of the US Senate, in 1856 South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks attacked Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate, beating him severely with a wooden cane. The same fierce intersectional conflict between pro-slavery southerners and anti-slavery northerners that created the Sumner-Brooks incident would lead, just five years later, to the Civil War.