Maryland

Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a wealthy Maryland statesman was the last surviving signer – and only Catholic signer – of the Declaration of Independence. He lived to age 95, passing away on November 14, 1832. After the deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1826, Carroll became the final living link to the founding generation. His death marked the end of an era when the nation's birth could still be recalled by one of its original framers. 

America might not have existed long without the heroic sacrifice of a small group of Marylanders on August 27, 1776. That late summer day men of the First Maryland Regiment found themselves surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by British forces during the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long Island), the largest battle of the Revolutionary War, fought just weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Before Emmylou Harris became a renowned musician, singer, songwriter, and activist, she was a struggling single mother in the D.C. area. A meeting at Clyde's in Georgetown would change her life.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.      

In the wake of George Washington's death, Americans across the country sought to memorialize our first president. But one small town in Maryland has the distinction of completing the first Washington Monument.

Did you know that gender discrimination in education has only been illegal for just over 50 years? In 1972, Title IX transformed how we think about gender equality in education and required colleges and universities to follow new standards if they wanted to keep receiving federal funding. It was a sea change event, and it all started with Bernice Sandler at the University of Maryland.

In the 1840s, northern abolitionist Charles T. Torrey had had enough of intellectual debates and meetings, so he headed south and teamed up with Thomas Smallwood to free hundreds of slaves in the D.C. area. Following his arrest in 1844, Torrey was imprisoned in the Maryland Penitentiary where he would become a martyr for his cause.