1970s

A Roma Americae stone. (Source: National Park Service)

The Mystery of the Pope's Stone

7/16/2013 in DC by Ariel Veroske

On the evening of March 5, 1854, nine men associated with the Know-Nothing party snuck up to the base of the Washington Monument and made off with a rather hefty hunk of stone. The men carried the stone to a boat waiting on the tidal basin, smashed it into pieces and dumped it in the middle of the Potomac.

You may be curious as to why they (or we!) were interested in an old — and probably really heavy — rock. Where exactly did this stone come from and why was it such a big deal when it was stolen and destroyed? Maybe it was the fact that it came from the Pope... Just a guess.

40 Years Ago, TVs Tuned to Watergate Hearings

5/17/2013 in DC by Mark Jones
Senate Watergate Committee chairman Sam Ervin (center) and other committee members listen to testimony. (Photo source: WETA Archives)

May 17, 1973 began an enthralling summer of reality television in Washington. That morning Senate Watergate Committee chairman Sam Ervin banged his gavel and launched hearings to investigate the details of the Watergate scandal, which had rocked the nation the previous June. Americans from coast to coast watched with great interest, trying to determine “what the President knew and when he knew it.” (Short answer: He knew a lot and he had known it for a long time.)

President Gerald Ford at a White House press conference, Washington, D.C., 1974. (Source: U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress)

When the White House Was in Alexandria

5/8/2013 in Virginia by Mark Jones

Everyone knows that the President lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. But some locals may remember a time when that wasn’t the case. For ten days in August of 1974, the leader of the free world lived in a relatively modest red brick and white clapboard house in Alexandria, Virginia and commuted to the Oval Office each morning. Life changed pretty quickly for Gerald Ford that summer.

Bomb Rocks U.S. Capitol

3/4/2013 in DC by Mark Jones
Washington Post cartoon March 1, 1971.

In the wee hours of the morning on March 1, 1971, a disturbing phone call came in to the Senate telephone switchboard. A man “with a hard low voice” told the operator that the U.S. Capitol would blow up in 30 minutes.

In the past, operators had fielded similar threatening calls from time to time, but all of them had turned out to be false alarms or pranks. This one, however, would be different.

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