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When Arlington Set the Nation's Clocks: The Arlington Radio Towers

When Arlington Set the Nation's Clocks: The Arlington Radio Towers

05/22/2022 in Virginia by Henry Kokkeler

A century ago, Arlington, Virginia was home to one of the most powerful radio stations in history, which helped to usher in an era of wireless communications worldwide.

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Virginia
"And Other Bloody Happenings": Rosslyn and the Dangers of Dead Man's Hollow

"And Other Bloody Happenings": Rosslyn and the Dangers of Dead Man's Hollow

05/09/2018 in Virginia by Anne Hollmuller

The name "Rosslyn" doesn't sound so menacing but don't be deceived. In the late 19th century the area had such a reputation for crime that a nearby ravine was called "Dead Man's Hollow."

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Virginia
"Right Out Our Front Door": The Pentagon, East Arlington and Queen City

"Right Out Our Front Door": The Pentagon, East Arlington and Queen City

03/23/2018 in Virginia by Anne Hollmuller

East Arlington and Queen City were two tight-knit African American communities that forged a strong and independent existence despite the perils of Jim Crow. Yet the rapid expansion of federal government and the pressing demands of World War II endangered all that these Arlington residents had built together and, quite literally, wiped it off the map.

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DC
From Crystal City to Cuba: The Tullers' International Crime Spree

From Crystal City to Cuba: The Tullers' International Crime Spree

02/07/2018 in DC by Callum Cleary

At 10:30 a.m. on October 25, 1972, two workers stepped out of a C&P Telephone van and into the Crystal City branch of the Arlington Trust Company. The bank’s phones had been down for nearly half an hour and manager Henry “Bud” Candee was eager to resume normal business. He met the repairmen in the lobby and led them to a service panel at the back of the bank. Unbeknownst to Candee, the technicians were frauds. They stole the uniforms and the van and caused the phone outage by climbing down a nearby manhole and severing the bank’s phone lines. But what was meant to be a relatively simple robbery, turned out to be the first act in one of the most dramatic — and bizarre — crime sprees in U.S. history.

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Virginia
Ballston Common: The Birth, Death, & Rebirth of the D.C. Area's First Major Shopping Mall

Ballston Common: The Birth, Death, & Rebirth of the D.C. Area's First Major Shopping Mall

08/08/2017 in Virginia by David Constine

“To describe this shopping center in words is a bit difficult because of its extremely high efficiency in the use of every square foot.”

While it may be hard today to imagine the shopping center at the intersection of Arlington’s Glebe Rd. and Wilson Blvd. as an exciting and advanced piece of architectural planning, it truly was at its opening in 1951. At the time, it was the largest suburban retail space on the East Coast, and the first-ever to be built around a parking garage (which also happened to be the largest parking garage in the United States). This sort of retail design was an absolute novelty, and an early hallmark of both the post-War evolution of the American suburb, as well as the DC area’s growing population. Its name, however, was a little on the nose: Parkington.

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Virginia
The Little Italy Under the Parkway

The Little Italy Under the Parkway

06/13/2017 in Virginia by David Constine

Few would believe that Arlington County once contained its own Little Italy – and few would recognize it if they saw it. Unlike the prototypical image of urban markets and crowded apartments, what Arlingtonians once referred to as "Little Italy" (or "Little Sicily") was an isolated makeshift village occupied by Italian quarrymen and their families on the banks of the Potomac, accessible only by footpath. 

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Maryland
No "Monopoly" on Monopoly: The Real Life History of One of America's Favorite Board Games

No "Monopoly" on Monopoly: The Real Life History of One of America's Favorite Board Games

04/21/2016 in Maryland by Benjamin Shaw

The official history of Monopoly states that the game was invented in 1935 by Charles Darrow, a man down on his luck during the Great Depression, who was catapulted to fame and fortune through his invention of a simple board game. The game was hugely popular, selling two million copies in its first two years in print. However, the game would have already seemed very familiar to intellectuals, leftists, and Quakers across the Northeast. And for good reason: the Monopoly we know today is a near-carbon copy of an earlier game, The Landlord’s Game, designed by a Maryland stenographer named Elizabeth Magie — except that while Monopoly’s goal is to bankrupt your opponents, The Landlord’s Game was intended to show players the evils of monopolies.

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Virginia

Remembering Arlington's John Lyon

11/11/2015 in Virginia by Mark Jones

Today, Arlington remembers Lt. John Lyon on the War Memorial in Clarendon Circle and at VFW Post 3150, which was established in 1934 and named in his honor.

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Maryland
The Wright Brothers Prove Their Worth in Arlington and College Park

The Wright Brothers Prove Their Worth in Arlington and College Park

08/26/2015 in Maryland by Benjamin Shaw

Ohio and North Carolina often get into a dispute about who can “claim” the Wright Brothers. The former was where the two lived and conducted most of their research, but the latter was where they actually took to the air for the first time. The debate rages on, with shots fired in forms from commemorative coins to license plates. But the place where the Wright Brothers really fathered the American aviation age was right here in the DC area, where they taught the first military pilots to fly, proved to the American public that their machine was real, and took to the air at what is now the oldest airport in the world.

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Virginia

Arlington Police Department: 75 Years Serving the Community

05/14/2015 in Virginia by Mark Jones

[video:http://watch.weta.org/video/2365489302]

1940 was a big year for municiple services in northern Virginia. Sparked by the growing population in the region, Arlington created professional police and fire departments and Fairfax created a police department of its own. In celebration of the ACPD's 75th Anniversary, the department has put together a book featuring photos and stories about the history of law enforcement in the county.

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