Here is an interesting video produced by UMBC’s Imaging Research Center (IRC) in 2010 visualizing early Washington DC. The IRC has worked with architectural historians, cartographers, engineers, and ecologists to assess the often-unreliable eyewitness accounts and sparse historical evidence to recreate a “best guess” glimpse of the early city. It ends with a surprising view of the U.S. Capitol and surroundings as it would have looked shortly before being burned down by the British.