standing in front of the garage, at the octagon. he drew him away from the crew, which is important. they discussed whether he should be there and he presumably explained why he was there and he laughed. there is a lot more to it than that, but i'm not going to try to summarize years of work in a couple of sentences. this is the octagon house before the fire. as you can see, it is built to withstand fire. it is made of proper materials. it has a tiled roof and there is space around it. this is the garage below. it was built with fire in mind. fire is inevitable. the passage of fire is inevitable. he did not plan on what happened. because nobody did. all right, this is the area. as seen from the house a half-mile away. as you can see by now, it is daylight. it is somewhere between 710 and 715, 720 in the morning. dave i came at 7:07 a.m. you can see that this is a discrete event. a bill of fire, a cylinder of fire. it is not what you think of when you think of a big massive fire front were slowly progressing fire. it is its own thing

the octagon is two -- two blocks from the white house.was a natural fit as they tried to resume government as quickly as possible. the majestic, elegant, spacious house was the perfect setting for the events that dolly needed to orchestrate and manage in the life of the president. this is why the house is known as the octagon. it was a round room very popular in those days. this was an important room to welcome guests. it is a round room. when you are in this room, no matter where you stand, you are equal. this was very important for dolly to make everybody feel welcome. enemies or allies. the room is a good example of why this house was so good for dolly. but-- dolley. she was known for her wednesday drawing room event. they had 300 people before the were coming. during the war, up to 500 people coming. the room could only said about 5200 people. it's still serve the the very important purpose. the country was still at war when the medicines were here. dolly was playing an important role. she often had different people here, and poured m

this is octagon fights that they say is the d.c.ng promotion. >> longest and shortest fight ever, probably. >> the shortest fight ever and the longest running promotion. this thing lasted. >> there is a great shame i need to reveal. you know i love star track. i can't do the vulcan thing. i am the only one on the show that can't do that. >> really? >> no. i can't. >> embarrassing. >> it is embarrassing. you know what else is embarrassing? i can't roll like coins between my fingers but the guys at the show off show technicalities have an instruction manual. the first thing you have to find a good coin. >> use the canadian coins. they look cool and they're called loonies and tunies. >> okay. we continue. >> step two. he shows us how to exactly do it. >> hold the coin with your thumb like this and bend your fingers in and do not keep them straight. push the coin over the finger and lift the middle finger so the coin falls into the gap between the fingers and pull that finger down while raising the index finger and the ring finger at th

standing here and looking down into the space, this 150-foot wide octagonal crossing, we can get somedea at least of what it was for brunelleschi to be faced by the greatest architectural and engineering challenge which had confronted any italian architect since the distant days of antiquity. it was quite impossible to fill this space with a forest of timber. it would never have supported itself, let alone the weight of the cupola during its construction. so brunelleschi's primary problem and his first triumph was to devise a form of scaffolding which started not at the ground, but 40 feet above our heads at the top of the drum. his second was to build the cupola in such a way that it was self-supporting in the course of its construction. [colin eisler] this is an important part of brunelleschi's structural solution-- herringbone brickwork. instead of simply laying rows of bricks horizontally, some were laid vertically to provide a kind of internal skeleton, locking the horizontal rings of brickwork into place whilst the mortar was setting. enormous scale involves enormous weight, and

the octagon is two blocks from the white house. it was a natural fit for james and dolley madison as they tried to resume government as quickly as possible. the majestic, elegant, spacious house was the perfect setting for the events that dolley needed to orchestrate and manage in the life of the president. this is the entry foyer. this is why the house is known as the octagon. it was a round room very popular in those days. this was an important room to welcome guests. as you can see, it is a round room. when you are in this room, no matter where you stand, you are equal. this was very important for dolley to make everybody feel welcome, be they enemies oralize. the room is a good example of why this house was so good for dolley. she was known for her wednesday drawing room event. they had 200 to 300 people before the war coming, and during the war, up to 500 people were coming. this room, of course, could only fit about 50 to 100 people, but it still served that very important purpose for dolley. the nation was still at war when