Maya Lin, a 21-year-old student at Yale University, submitted a design for the proposed Vietnam Veterans Memorial as part of her architecture course. One of 1,421 entries, Maya Lin’s design was simple – two triangular black walls sinking into the earth at an angle of 125 degrees, one end pointing to the Lincoln Memorial, the other to the Washington Monument. On the walls would be inscribed the names of the Americans who died in the Vietnam War, in chronological order, from the first casualty in 1959 to the last in 1975.

Lin received only B grade on the course, but she won the competition. Her design, called by some a scar on the earth, has become one of the most moving monuments on the Mall. Veterans and their families leave tokens of remembrance – soft toys, poems, pictures, an flowers – at the site of the fallen soldier’s name.

To mollify those opposed to the abstract memorial, a statue of three soldiers, sculpted by Frederick Hart, was added in 1984. Further lobbying led to the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, erected close by in 1993.