Senate

The Senate has adjourned for the day, and the legislators, journalists, and visitors that had filled the chamber file out into the warm evening. Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, a well-known abolitionist, remains at his desk, scribbling notes among his spread of papers. A stranger approaches him from the aisle. He is holding a cane with a knobbed golden head. Leaning over, he reproaches Sumner for disparaging a relative of his in a speech given several days prior. Sumner still does not know who is speaking to him.

It is May 22, 1856, and as the stranger raises the cane over his head, America lurches closer to civil war.

The first Black man to win a full term in the Senate came to D.C. in 1875. When white supremacists retook his home state of Mississippi, Blanche Bruce built a new life in the nation's capital.

From 1920 to 1930, George Cassiday was a bootlegger for Congress. He sold alcohol to four out of every five members during Prohibition, and at one point had an office inside the House Office Building. After his arrest for possessing alcohol, Cassiday told his story in The Washington Post.

Deep in the basement of the U.S. Capitol Building, used to stand six bathtubs, hand-carved from Italian Carrara marble. These tubs were installed initially as a practical bathing option for Congressmen living in D.C. boarding houses with primitive bathing facilities. Although mostly forgotten by the 1890s once the new Washington Aqueduct provided running water to most homes in the area, these exquisite tubs were once a popular attraction for Congressmen and their visitors alike.

Today, the National Cancer Institute invests nearly $5 billion each year in medical research aimed at learning more about various types of cancer and finding cures for them. While it's a war in which many battles still lie ahead, there have been some encouraging signs of progress, with death rates decreasing for the most common types of cancer.

But it took a long time for the federal anti-cancer effort to get rolling, and it started small. By the late 1920s, the U.S. government had made barely a token investment in fighting an affliction that at the time claimed 83.4 lives per 100,000 population, making it one of the nation's leading causes of death.

More resources needed to be invested in fighting cancer, and the man who started the battle to get that money was a colorful politician born in a West Virginia log cabin named Matthew Mansfield Neely.

In the U.S. Senate's sculpture collection, there are plenty of busts of instantly recognizable historical figures such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. But enshrined alongside them, there's also the lushly-bearded, bowtie-wearing likeness of an obscure 19th Century Italian-American artist. While Brumidi, who signed his work "C. Brumidi Artist Citizen of the U.S.," isn't a famous name, he left a lasting mark on the U.S. Capitol, by creating striking frescoes and murals that add charm and grace to the building's interior.

Brumidi's work, which can be found throughout the Capitol, includes the fresco The Apotheosis of Washington in the Rotunda canopy. But his masterwork is the hallways on the first floor of the Senate wing, an assortment of frescoes and murals known as the Brumidi Corridors. Inspired by Raphael's Loggia in the Vatican, Brumidi's art is distinguished by his blending of classical imagery with patriotic American themes. The Washington Post once described Brumidi as "the genius of the Capitol," and noted that "so many of its stateliest rooms bear the touch of this tireless brush that he shall always be associated with it." Art historian Francis V. O'Connor has called him "the first really accomplished American muralist." A journalist of his time went even further, labeling him "the Michelangelo of the U.S. Capitol."

A complicated sense of honor can get you killed. That’s why people like John Randolph of Roanoke update their wills before engaging in potentially suicidal duels, like the one Randolph had with Henry Clay in 1826. And, boy was Randolph’s idea of honor super complicated.