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In 1865, Lewis Powell was tried and hanged along with three other conspirators for their roles in the Lincoln assassination.

Scandals have plagued Washington, D.C. pretty much since it was created but the society pages of the1890s, dished some of the juiciest gossip. One particularly sensational event was the 1893 visit of a Spanish Princess whose manner and dress shocked D.C. elites.

Before he broke Major League Baseball's baseball’s color barrier, Jackie Robinson stole the show as a Negro League player for the Kansas City Monarchs. In a 1945 doubleheader against the Homestead Grays in Washington, 18,000 fans at Griffith Stadium watch Robinson tie a National Negro League record by going 7 for 7.

In April 1848, more than 76 enslaved people in Washington, D.C. slipped aboard The Pearl under the cover of darkness and the small schooner set sail down the Potomac.

On April 16, 1862 Congress passed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, freeing more than 3,100 people in the capital months before the Emancipation Proclamation and spawning an annual Emancipation Day celebration that was revived in 2005.

As the British attacked and burned Washington, D.C. in August 1914, George Robert Gleig found time to take in the sights and form some opinions.

During World War II, the We Will Never Die – a Mass Memorial to the Two Million Dead of Europe pageant at Constitution Hall helped bring truth to power about the horrors of the Holocaust. 

Huddie William Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, was a legendary folk and blues musician famed for his twelve‑string guitar virtuosity, powerful voice, and the many standards he popularized. His songs have been covered by artists from Bob Dylan to Led Zeppelin.

You know who was just too fabulous for Washington. D.C. to handle? Oscar Wilde. He caused quite a stir when he visited in the January of 1882 as part of a lecture tour on the “Philosophy of Aestheticism”.

All we know for sure is that Stonewall Jackson's left arm was buried at Ellwood plantation in 1863. What has happened to it since is anyone's guess.