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During the Civil War Lincoln relied on War Department telegraph operators not just to send messages but to encode communications and break Confederate ciphers. Their work helped foil plots and protect plans, turning a small office next to the White House into the era's intelligence hub.

The Washington, D.C. area has plenty of monuments and grand statues, to be sure. But Takoma Park, Maryland, has one that stands out from the rest: A life-size bronze likeness of a rooster on a pedestal, which thrusts his feathered chest jauntily at passers-by, as if it owned the town. Which, in fact, he once did.

On Oct. 5, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson and visiting Philippines President Diosdado Macapagal rode a 25-minute noontime parade through downtown Washington. It was an unremarkable presidential event except for one unsettling detail: the car in which they rode was the same customized black 1961 Lincoln in which President John F.

For decades, streetcars were the backbone of Washington, D.C. transit. But in the 1950s, the system started to come undone due to politics, labor strife, and tanking ridership. On January 28, 1962, D.C.'s streetcar made its last, funeral‑like run.

On January 28, 1962, Washington's original streetcar system road the rails for the final time. That last run ended 99 and a half years of service to the nation's capital as buses replaced the trolleys as the primary means of mass transit in the District. So, how did we get to that point?

The 1971 T.C. Williams High School football team rolled to the Virginia state championship and united a divided Alexandria during a contentious school consolidation process. Their championship season inspired the Disney film Remember the Titans. But was the movie accurate?

December 6, 1877 was a big day in local journalism as D.C.'s longest running local rag, The Washington Post, published its first issue. For three pennies readers got four pages of news. Sounds like a pretty good deal.

Nelson Mandela, who died December 5, 2013, was mourned worldwide as the leader who beat Apartheid and then worked to promote reconciliation and racial tolerance in South Africa. But just months after he was freed from a South African prison, Mandela created a sensation — and some tense, discomforting moments — when he visited the U.S.

In the summer of 1861 the Confederate States found themselves annoyed by the U.S.S. Pawnee, a gunboat that patrolled the Potomac and made it difficult for the southerners to receive supplies from northern sympathizers. Fortunately for the Confederates, Col. Richard Thomas Zarvona had a plan...

As many realtors will tell you, the first three rules of real estate are, “location, location, location.” Well, in the late 1960s, location presented a very serious problem for transit planners and the congregation of the Adas Israel synagogue.