David M. Brown
David McDowell Brown (April 16, 1956 – February 1, 2003) was a United States Navy captain and a NASA astronaut. He died on his first spaceflight, when the Space Shuttle "Columbia" (STS-107) disintegrated during orbital reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Brown became an astronaut in 1996, but had not served on a space mission prior to the "Columbia" disaster. Brown was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Brown, the 1986 recipient of the Navy Operational Flight Surgeon of the Year award, received numerous decorations including:
The symbol indicates a posthumous award.
District of Columbia retrocession
The District of Columbia retrocession was the process of returning to the U.S. commonwealth of Virginia a part of the land that had been ceded to the federal government of the United States for the purpose of creating its federal district and capital city. The land was taken in 1790. It was returned, after many stages of federal and state approval, in March of 1847.