Walking through DC, you may notice faded fallout shelter signs marking buildings.  They are some of the last clues of a historic past when the federal government designated thousands of shelters throughout DC to save Washingtonians from a nuclear apocalypse. But would they have worked?

You know Neoclassical architecture.  But do you know why Brutalism came to D.C.?  Discover how a time of changing architectural styles paved the way for Brutalism to dominate D.C.'s federal buildings.   

Vince Lombardi wasn’t planning to continue coaching after he resigned as head coach with the Green Bay Packers. Instead, he was going to get away from that stress-filled lifestyle and move into a general manager position with the Packers. “I’m still a young man, but I doubt I would ever go back to coaching,” Lombardi said when he moved to the front office after the 1967 season. After just a year as general manager, he found himself longing to be on the sidelines again. “I’m certainly getting a little itchy,” Lombardi admitted in August of 1968. Soon enough, this itch overcame his life. He found his way to the nation's capital and transformed the Washington Redskins on and off the field.

An unsung hero from D.C. history has received a much-deserved spotlight in Tempestuous Elements, a new play at Arena Stage about visionary educator Anna Julia Cooper. We spoke to two of the people who helped bring the history to life: Otis Ramsey-Zöe, the play’s dramaturg, and Vanessa Dalpiaz, Arena Stage’s Artistic Development Fellow. Otis and Vanessa walk us through notable moments from Dr. Cooper’s life and discuss her legacy in D.C.

The Underground Railroad has deeper ties to the Washington DC area than many know. Escaped slaves are believed to have used the burial vault at Mount Zion Cemetery in Georgetown as a hiding place during their journey to freedom.

In the U.S., we’re used to seeing recycled British names. It often feels a little anticlimactic to learn that a British colonist simply lifted the name of their hometown—Kensington, Cambridge, Salisbury, Westminster, Essex, Arlington, the list goes on—and slapped it onto whatever colony, town, or road they wanted to claim. However, the state of Maryland may be able to claim a rare distinction: lending its name to a location in Great Britain, not vice versa.

You might think today is rough, but if people lived in the DMV 35 million years ago, they would have faced a cosmic apocalypse in their very own backyards.