Articles

Around these parts it’s pretty common to have buildings named after politicians. But back in the 1890s, the Washington Post felt that Rep. Joseph G. Cannon (R – Illinois) deserved a different kind of recognition for his work on the National Zoo project.

On March 4, 1873, Ulysses S. Grant’s second inauguration turned into a frozen spectacle: a noon temperature of 16°F with 40 mph gusts produced wind chills down to −15° to −30°F, marching cadets were sent to hospitals, musicians couldn’t play because their breath froze in their instruments, canaries hung in the ballroom froze and fell onto the dancers, and even the champagne turned to ice.

In the wee hours of the morning on March 1, 1971, a disturbing phone call came in to the Senate telephone switchboard. A man “with a hard low voice” told the operator that an explosion would rock the U.S. Capitol in 30 minutes. It was not a false alarm.

On March 2, 1889, President Grover Cleveland signed legislation establishing a zoological park along Rock Creek in Northwest Washington “for the advancement of science and the instruction and recreation of the people.” But, of course, the backstory began years before and included buffalo grazing on the National Mall.

In March 2013, the National Museum of American History opened a special exhibit commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the National Women’s Suffrage Parade held in D.C. It was quite a memorable occasion and not all for good reasons.

The events of April 14, 1865 at Ford's Theatre in Washington are well known. Actor John Wilkes Booth went into President Lincoln's box and shot him. The President was mortally wounded and died the next morning. What you may not know, however, is that there were others victimized that April night... and their story is haunting.

Local historian Garrett Peck explores a forgotten 19th-century scandal that links the rusty red sandstone of the Smithsonian Castle to a web of insider stock deals, an illegal Freedman’s Bank loan, and the financial collapse that helped trigger the Panic of 1873.

If Cupid strikes you in the heart today, you might decide to take a trip to a Las Vegas wedding chapel or your local courthouse for a quick wedding. If you wanted to get married in a hurry in the 1930s, however, there was only one place to go: Elkton, Maryland just inside the Delaware border.

Rumor has it that Led Zeppelin's first live show in the DC area was at the Wheaton Youth Center — a nondescript gymnasium in a Maryland suburb on January 20, 1969, in front of 50 confused teens. But there are no photos, articles or a paper trail of any sort to prove it. Surely this must be an urban legend. Or is it? Local filmmaker Jeff Krulik has spent 5 years trying to find out. 

You probably read The Great Gatsby at some point in school, but did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald has a D.C. area connection Indeed he did — and a somewhat controversial one at that!

On February 2, 1959, four African American seventh‑graders walked into Stratford Junior High and became the first students to integrate a public school in Virginia. With over 100 Arlington County police officers in riot gear standing guard, it was an orderly and historic moment that helped break the state’s “Massive Resistance” to Brown v. Board and opened the door to wider desegregation across Virginia

On February 3, 1943, four military chaplains—Rabbi Alexander Goode, George Fox, Clark Poling, and Father John Washington—gave their life jackets to fellow soldiers and went down with the troopship Dorchester after a U-boat torpedo strike, a selfless act remembered each year with stamps, memorials, and ceremonies that honor their interfaith courage