I noted a mistake in the daily Almanac feature which has been repeated over and over and needs to be corrected.
On Dec. 23, 1788, Maryland and Virginia ceded an area along the Potomac River to the federal government for use as a national capital site. This was a ten-mile-square-area, that is, ten miles by ten miles, totaling one hundred square miles, not a ”ten-square mile-area” as stated in the Almanac.
Since some shortsighted nitwits figured that the federal government did not need, and could never use, all that space, the Virginia side was given back to Virginia. Most of that section is now Arlington County, Va. The southernmost tip of the square is part of Alexandria, Va. The District is now, therefore, considerably less than one hundred square miles.
