In Media and Popular Culture
A scene from the 2007 mystery-adventure film National Treasure: Book of Secrets was filmed in the Memorial Theater. The stage in the theater was a stand-in for a lecture hall. An additional scene was filmed in the Memorial Hall.
The memorial also figured briefly in author Dan Brown's 2009 best-selling novel, The Lost Symbol. The memorial is discussed in chapter 78, but not visited by the novel's protagonists.
The release of Brown's book in 2009 brought widespread media attention to the memorial. The Discovery Channel filmed a portion of a documentary about Freemasonry at the memorial in August 2009 (it aired in October 2009). Brown himself recommended that The Today Show co-host Matt Lauer visit the memorial, and Lauer subsequently filmed a segment in the Royal Arch room (it aired September 14, 2009, the day before Brown's book was released). NBC Nightly News interviewed memorial staff around the same time, and Dateline NBC filmed a portion of a segment on Brown's book at the memorial as well (it aired October 16, 2009).
C-SPAN aired a special program about the building, George Washington Masonic National Memorial, on December 21, 2010 (the 100th anniversary of the creation of the memorial's governing association).
Read more about this topic: George Washington Masonic National Memorial
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