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.

When one thinks about George Washington they probably think of the general that led America to victory in the Revolutionary War or the first president of the United States. What they may not think about is someone with a sometimes complicated relationship with his mother. 

In a city full of monuments and memorials like Washington, not all of them can be beautiful. Exhibit A: The Temperance Fountain at Seventh Street and Indiana Avenue, NW. So how did we come in possession of this strange piece of public art?

In the 1920s, a group of D.C. women formed the Anti-Flirt Club to put a stop to the increasingly annoying, and at times dangerous, problem of men harassing women from motor vehicles and street corners. 

In the early 1990s, the Smithsonian found itself embroiled in national controversy over one of its planned exhibitions, making enemies of newspapers, veterans groups, and even Congress. What was the right way to display the plane that dropped the atomic bomb?

Though they may fall by the wayside of textbooks, without the efforts American women made toward the Revolution, the Continental Army would have been in dire straits indeed. Luckily, the women of Maryland and Virginia met the challenges of supply shortages, low morale, and lack of funds with determination and patriotism.

George Washington's enslaved valet William Lee accompanied the General to every encampment and battle during the American Revolution. But, until recently, history has largely forgotten him. 

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.

Through the first five years of the Revolutionary War, the beloved home of George Washington has managed to remain out of harm's way. But as winds sweep inland along the Potomac, British ships start to stalk upriver. From the windows of Mount Vernon, the household can see homes and plantations burn on the Maryland shore. Then, the warships turn their guns toward General Washington's home.