Capitol has seen violence over 220 years, but not like this

Washington DC: In more than 220 years, the US Capitol had seen nothing like it: a roiling mob, forcing its way past its majestic marble columns, disrupting the passage of power, desecrating the seat of the world's greatest democracy.

But this was far from the first time the Capitol has been scarred by violence.

In 1814, just 14 years after the building opened, British forces in the War of 1812 tried to burn it down. The invaders looted the building first, and then set the southern and northern wings ablaze incinerating the Library of Congress.

A sudden rainstorm prevented its total destruction, but the building was left a most magnificent ruin, according to architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Over the centuries since, events have made a mockery of the inscription on the rostrum of the House chamber Union, Justice, Tolerance, Liberty, Peace. The building has been bombed several times. There have been shootings. One legislator almost killed another. The most famous episode occurred in 1950, when four Puerto Rican nationalists unfurled the island's flag and, shouting Freedom for Puerto Rico," unleashed a barrage of about 30 shots from the visitor's gallery of the House. Five congressmen were injured, one of them seriously. I did not come to kill anyone, I came to die for Puerto Rico! cried the leader, Lolita Lebron, when she and the others were arrested.

Before and since, the building has been a target. In 1915, a German man planted three sticks of dynamite in the Senate reception room; it went off shortly before midnight, when no one was around.