Washington, D.C.

In 1956, the Woodward & Lothrop department store in Washington DC, located at 11th and F St NW, hosted a traveling exhibit purporting to showcase the “American Dream.” Woodward & Lothrop, or “Woody’s” as it was affectionately called, was a staple in the city for over one hundred years, from the late 1800s to 1995, when it merged with another company. During the "Era of Department Stores," a period lasting from the '30s to the '70s when department stores were the main mode of shopping for the American family, Woodward & Lothrop was the King of DC. This is probably why the store felt entirely comfortable hosting the “American Dream” exhibit, and the exhibit’s main draw: four watercolors painted between 1917 and 1919 by Adolf Hitler.

On June 8, 1918, Washingtonians looked to the sky hoping to see… well… something. But, many weren’t quite sure exactly what. As the Evening Star noted:

“There was a great craning of necks on the streets. Many a citizen who had read about the eclipse and forgotten about it, wanted to know where the aeroplane was…. One woman called up The Star and wanted to know whether the Marine Band ‘is playing on the eclipse.’ A reporter carefully explained that the Marine Band sometimes played on the Ellipse.”

For scientists at the U.S. Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue, however, there was no confusion. The day marked an extraordinary astronomical event -- a transcontinental total eclipse -- and they pulled out all the stops to document it.

For the past 18 years, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has hosted the First Person program each summer. These programs are open to the public, and allow musuem visitors to listen to personal stories of Holocaust survivors, and to engage with them.

Those who travelled into the District in the early part of May could enjoy a rock concert, good food, and plenty of protesting. In May 1971, the culmination of months of anti-Vietnam protesting took hold of D.C., when thousands of young Americans attempted to block traffic, execute sit-ins, and make their voices heard.

“Immaculate” and “modern to the nth degree” read a Washington Post ad one December day in 1930. Sounds intriguing, but what dazzling, new technology was it describing? A television set? One of those new electric razors? Penicillin?

The answer: a strip mall.

Decades before Venus and Serena Williams dominated women’s tennis on the WTA tour, the Peters Sisters — Margaret Peters, a.k.a. “Pete", and Roumania Peters, a.k.a. “Repeat” — from Georgetown, were unstoppable champions in the all-black American Tennis Association.

"The visions that baseball fans could conjure only in their fondest dreams will evolve as realisms at Griffith Stadium on Wednesday when spectacle will be heaped on spectacle, thrill piled on thrill. There, in a contest apart from all the rest, the dream game comes to life." Though few others described the mood as eloquently as Shirley Povich, many in the nation’s capital shared his excitement as Washington prepared to host its first baseball All-Star game in 1937.

When it comes to music, Washington D.C is known as the birthplace of Go-Go, and a foundational city for Hardcore Punk. However, the city’s musical presence doesn’t end there. Perhaps less well known is D.C’s importance for American Primitive Guitar, a somewhat more obscure though nevertheless highly influential genre.

In November 1985, the last thing Washingtonians expected to see was the Princess of Wales strolling through the Springfield Mall...sadly she didn't stop for a soft pretzel along the way.

In 1992, D.C. was rife with three “C’s”: Clinton, crack, and comedians. The first found a home in the White House, the second began to disappear from the streets, but the third—eager to make it as Stand-Ups—were left to wander in a city that offered them limited opportunities to perform. The opening of a new comedy club that July, the DC Improv, could not have come at a better time.

It’s Washington in 1967, and the District’s old reputation as a sleepy, southern city is being squashed by the feet of Vietnam War protesters and the voices of Washingtonians calling for racial equality. That same year, local theatre Arena Stage announced that, on December 12, it would be putting on the world premiere of Howard Sackler’s play, The Great White Hope. At the time of its production, the play was completely unknown. No one would have imagined that 50 years later, the production of the now-Tony-winning show would go down in history as one of the most influential moments in shaping the political and cultural landscape of Washington in the 1960s. 
 

On Friday, January 27, 1950, Mary Church Terrell met three friends for a late lunch in downtown Washington. Terrell, then 86, entered Thompson’s Restaurant on 14th Street NW around 2:45 pm with Rev. William H. Jernigan, Geneva Brown and David Scull. Their party was integrated – Scull was white while the others were black – however, Thompson’s Restaurant was not. Like most other D.C. eating establishments at the time, it was whites only... but Terrell planned to change that.