It was on this day in 1801 that D.C. was formally put under the control of Congress with the enactment of the District of Columbia Organic Act.

The law not only subjugated the city’s residents to congressional control—not much has changed in the intervening 212 years, huh?—but it also created two counties out of the land that had been donated by Virginia and Maryland for a federal capital a decade prior: the County of Washington east of the Potomac River and the County of Alexandria west of it. Georgetown and Alexandria, which were preexisting and fully-incorporated settlements, remained intact, and the law allowed Maryland and Virginia laws remained in effect throughout the new capital.

Of course, that was only the beginning of things. It was the next year that D.C. was granted a municipal government with a mayor appointed by the president; the city’s first mayor was Robert Brent, after whom the Brentwood neighborhood is named. That arrangement lasted until 1871, when D.C. was reorganized and we were briefly given a governor and then a board of commissioners. (Georgetown was fully incorporated into D.C. in 1895; Alexandria was lost to Virginia in 1846.)

Well, we can all use today to be thankful that we’re lorded over by an august body that has its house in order and is nationally well-respected, right? Wait, what?