Though the AIDS epidemic had been raging for nearly a decade, by 1988, the FDA had only cleared a single drug to treat it. Frustrated with what they considered a deadly lack of initiative, AIDS patients, community activists, friends, and family marched to the FDA's headquarters in Rockville to demand more treatments, more urgency, and more understanding.
As the British marched on Washington during the War of 1812, government clerks scrambled to hide the nation's precious documents. According to legend, the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights ended up in the cellar of Rokeby, a mansion outside of Leesburg, Virginia where they were guarded by a local minister. But is the legend true?
In 1982, as federal funding for the arts faced cuts, a multiracial women's coalition in D.C. created Sisterfire, a women's festival. What began as a one-day event quickly grew into an annual celebration of women artists.
A nefarious plot against one of Washington's most beloved landmarks was unfolding in the spring of 1999. On April 1st, an attacker moved quickly when no one was around, and chopped down one of the Cherry Trees along the Tidal Basin. This was no April Fools Day joke.
In 1860, a 21 year old man named Edward Payson Weston made a wild bet: if Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election, he would walk the nearly 500 miles from Boston to Washington, D.C. This wager, initially a joke between two friends, turned into a real challenge that would spark national headlines and launch a new kind of celebrity.
In the spring of 1936, three torrential rainstorms, caused floodwaters to run straight off the Appalachian Mountains and into the Potomac. The swollen river rose over 30 feet in some places, submerging towns, and tearing bridges off their foundations. As reports of the devastation come from all across the Northeast, Washington, D.C. scrambled to defend itself.
Jerry Smith was a record setting tight end for the (then) Washington Redskins from 1965 - 1977. In 1986, Smith also became the first professional athlete to announce he was suffering from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, better known as AIDS. Smith’s decision to reveal his diagnosis did not come easy, nor did being a closeted gay player in an era when opening up about one’s sexuality could risk losing everything.
In the fall of 2000, D.C. resident Mark Meinke was working on a book about drag performers when he ran into a huge roadblock: there were no archives covering the history of his research subject or the District’s large and vibrant LGBTQIA+ community. “D.C., unlike other Gay centers, has no available and accessible community memory or archives,” he wrote in the Washington Blade. So, he did something about it.
Before Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard, there was Ham. America's first "astrochimp" rocketed into space and paved the way for the Moon landing before retiring to the National Zoo. His impact was undeniable but it also raised questions.
Ana Montes was called the "Queen of Cuba" by her colleagues in the Defense Intelligence Agency for her expertise on Cuban affairs. Little did her colleagues know, she hid a dangerous secret. Ultimately, the DIA and the FBI teamed up to reveal what for years she had kept hidden: the Pentagon's top expert on Cuba was actually one of Cuba's top spies.
From 1971 to 72, a serial killer abducted and murdered six African-American girls in D.C. But over 50 years later, the "Freeway Phantom" has never been caught.
On the eve of the American Bicentennial, bonsai master Masaru Yamaki donated his 350-year-old Japanese white pine to the U.S. National Arboretum. No American knew of its true history until in 2001, when two brothers flew from Japan to find the tree their family had nurtured for generations. The story they shared was nothing short of incredible. The Yamaki pine wasn't just an artistic masterpiece, it was a survivor of nuclear war, and one man's gesture of forgiveness to the country that almost killed him.
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