(C) U.S. State Dept
This story was originally published by U.S. State Dept and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



These tangible items tie the U.S. to a special ally [1]

['Dave Reynolds']

Date: 2025-07-23 12:28:45+00:00

As a frontier surveyor, American Revolutionary War general and the first U.S. president, George Washington proved he could make his mark anywhere. But London’s Trafalgar Square?

It may seem odd, but a bronze statue of Washington has stood in the famed London plaza for a century. Recently refurbished for America’s upcoming 250th anniversary, the statue is set to stand for centuries longer — a time capsule at its base will be opened in 250 years, on America’s 500th anniversary.

Dirt from Washington’s Mount Vernon home was added to the capsule to ensure the statue stands on American soil, a nod to a well-known, but mythical, quip by Washington that he’d “never set foot on British soil.”

Meanwhile, the sculpted likeness of a revered British prime minister stands in Washington, along busy Massachusetts Avenue, where many foreign embassies are located. The likeness of Winston Churchill, U.K. prime minister from 1940–45 and 1951–55, stands with its left foot on the British soil of the British Embassy’s lawn and right foot on U.S. soil, a nod to his American heritage. (Churchill’s mother was born in New York.)

The statues and their placements symbolize the strong friendship between long-standing allies.

U.S. presidents and secretaries of state have visited the United Kingdom more than any other country. And “the special relationship,” as Churchill called it when visiting Missouri, goes beyond government.

Lost and found

Historians often cite the influence of Britain’s magna carta — with its emphasis on the rule of law — on the U.S. founding documents and democracy.

Remarkably, in March, as Americans were beginning to plan for the country’s upcoming 250th birthday, a history professor at King’s College London, using a U.S. library catalog discovered that what had been believed to be a copy of the Magna Carta is actually an original dating to the year 1300.

Harvard University’s Law Library had purchased the document 80 years ago for $27.50 (20.40 British pounds). After King’s College Professor David Carpenter raised his suspicion that it might be a rare original — one of only six surviving intact — Harvard sent detailed images.

With parts of the document faded, Carpenter found it “better to look at it online … because you could blow it up and then see much more clearly what is there.”

University of East Anglia Medieval History Professor Nicholas Vincent, who helped confirm the discovery, called the Magna Carta an icon of “Western political tradition and of constitutional law,” widely regarded as “the most famous single document in the history of the world.”

Americans’ London sanctuary

At St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, a tradition pays tribute to the countries’ shared World War II sacrifices. After the war, the British rebuilt a bombed-out section of the famous church as an American Memorial Chapel, complete with carvings and stained glass windows ornately decorated with flowers and birds representing America and its 50 states.

The chapel’s centerpiece is a Roll of Honour commemorating American heroes who lost their lives while stationed in the U.K. during the war. Roughly 60 American names are listed on each of 473 pages, and every day a St. Paul’s employee turns the book’s pages to ensure each of the 28,000 names is displayed at least once every two years.

The page-turning tradition began when the chapel opened in November 1958 and occurs every day but Sunday.

On average, some 3,300 visitors view the Roll of Honour daily. Esther Anstice, a virger, or clergy assistant in the Anglican tradition, says many are American. She views their visit as a pilgrimage and enjoys helping people find their relatives’ names in the church’s copies of each page. With advance notice, the church sometimes arranges for the book to be open to a certain page, and, on rare occasion, visitors have found the book fortuitously opened to their relative’s name.

St. Paul’s still receives requests from the U.S. government to add a name when it discovers that a fallen World War II service member was stationed in the U.K. at the time. Those edits have occurred about two dozen times in Anstice’s 10 years on the job, when she would enlist several strong people to help her remove the heavy book from its case so that she could add a name in calligraphy.

Anstice enjoys working amid so much history — people have worshipped on the grounds where St. Paul’s Cathedral stands since 604 — and the American Chapel and the Roll of Honour are a part of that tradition. “That book connects us to a part of our history,” she says. For American visitors, she adds, St. Paul’s wants the chapel to be “a place where they can feel at home.”

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://share.america.gov/these-tangible-items-tie-us-to-special-ally/

Published and (C) by U.S. State Dept
Content appears here under this condition or license: Public Domain.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/usstate/