On the evening of Aug. 24, 1814, a man — unelected and not American — walked into the House of Representatives in Washington, DC, and sat in the chair of the Speaker of the House.
He marveled at the opulence of the regal room, designed to reflect the grandeur of the Renaissance with “26-foot-high Corinthian columns of solid and beautiful freestone.”
George Cockburn, a rear admiral in the British Navy, was one of the leaders of the only invading force ever to breach the corridors of power in the United States.
Having achieved his goal spectacularly, he was about to call for the first and only vote ever taken from this chamber by one of our country's enemies.
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