established by congress in 1820 the u.s. botanic garden is the oldest botanic garden in north america and next, we'll take a tour at the foot of capitol hill and learn about the collections of this plan museum originally proposed by president washington in 1796. >> welcome to the botanic garden. my name is ari novy. i am the executive director of the united states botanic garden. our official mission is to demonstrate to the public the importance of plants and their value to humankind. today were going to take some time and i'm going to show you a little bit about the botanic garden and introduce you to the stars, those are the wonderful plants that we have here today. right now were standing in a room called the garden court. always like to orient people to the garden court will become in.

one of the most important elements are the two cycads we see here prominently displayed. they are incredibly important for us because they represent a part of our historical collection. u.s. botanic garden came into existence in some ways as a permanent institution in 1842 when the u.s. exploring expedition surveying but also returned from a four-year voyage at the behest of congress, mainly doing some surveying, but they also take up all bunch of scientific artifacts including living plant specimens. when the expedition returned, they had about 150 fascinating tropical and subtropical plant species, many of which have never before been on north american continent. this was deemed very valuable. this collection of plants was immediately recognized as important by congress.

funds were incorporated near the old patent office building to house them while it permanent u.s. botanic garden good the built. -- could be built. we still have to this day a couple of plants that are direct descendents come in many cases vegetative prosecutable of the plants. the one on the left is one of the original wilk plants as we call them. it is subsequent to the introduction to the united states in 1800 is has become a relatively important tree species in terms of element -- ornamental tree species in the tropical parts of the united states and specifically southern florida. we have made sure to include a

canopy walk in the higher levels of the jungle house. it's just absolutely wonderful to get up amongst the top of the trees into the canopy, see the wonderful and interesting plants that grow at this level and also see a different perspective look down on the trunks, but look straight ahead at the leaves and flowers and seeds. it provides a really interesting environment that is different from what you would see from the ground level. i want to thank you for taking the time to visit us here at the u.s. botanic garden. the u.s. botanic garden is an absolutely wonderful resource area where hundreds of the five -- 365 days per year. there is always something in bloom, always something to see and always hopefully something you have not seen before.

>> monday night, we spoke with two industry executives at the consumer electronics show in las vegas. the senior vice president at ericsson, and the senior cisco vice president talk about the companies and the technology on which the and or mobile phones, and the cloud operate. >> we talk about something called the network society. it is a society where everything that can benefit from having a connection will actually have one. we put a vision forward in 2009 in barcelona at the trade show going on there called the 50 billion connected devices in 2020. it has caught on very well in the world. the mobile industry is not

limited to smart phones and devices that we carry around personally. it also is a great technology to connect so many other things and be able to build a better society based on those kind of technologies. >> we started with a theme that somebody needed to get somewhere, somehow, by dial-up and actions, etc. we brought that from being in your home to being with every device that you carry around on the mobile internet. the next stage is about taking it from these mobile devices to things, to information, and connecting not just people that things with people, information with people. so we can actually create what we call the internet of everything. we are in the early stages of building up that internet of everything. >> that's monday night at 8:00 eastern on "the communicators go on c-span2. >> this american canadian

special operations team was formed in 1942 and helped liberate much of europe. the military unit was made up of 1800 servicemen. both american and canadian veterans attended the event at the u.s. capitol. this program last about an hour. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, the speaker of the united states house of representatives, the honorable john boehner. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, and welcome to the

united states capitol. it's good to see all of you here today. since the days of the revolution, congress has awarded good -- gold medals to express the people's appreciation for distinguished achievements. the first recipient was general george washington himself in march of 1776. today, pursuant to house resolution 324, we will present a gold medal in honor of the first special service force. the force was activated in 1942 as an elite unit of 1800 american and canadian commandos. just how elite? for every man they lost, they killed 25. for every man they captured, they took 235. the force was so fearless that the enemy dubbed them the devils , and so effective today that

are special reverse -- special forces refer to them as pioneers. his men represent the finest of the finest. so today we bestow on them are highest honor.