Alyssa Raye

Donate

Showing 1 posts of 1

The Cinema Follies Fire and What It Revealed About Washington

In the fall of 1977, a fire broke out at the Cinema Follies film club in Southeast Washington. The men upstairs found their only escape padlocked shut. The disaster forced Washington to confront the risks its gay community faced, and who that community really was.
November 10, 2026
- Washington, D.C.
By Alyssa Raye

View All Posts

Featured Topics

Sketch of the mythical fuan by Pearson Scott Foresman. [Source: Wikipedia]

Halloween

13 Posts

A group from Ecuador marches to Kalorama Park during 1971 Latino Festival. (Source: Reprinted with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection © Washington Post)

Hispanic Americans

6 Posts

Painting of George Washington on white horse with British soldiers walking alongside. Groups of soldiers stand on either side of the frame.

Revolutionary War

9 Posts

Abraham Lincoln

23 Posts

Woody Guthrie, 1943 (Library of Congress)

Music History

35 Posts

The Washington Mall from behind the Washington Monument, with the museums and other buildings visible in the distance

National Mall

16 Posts

German actress Hedwig Reicher wearing costume of "Columbia" with other suffrage pageant participants standing in background in front of the Treasury Building, March 3, 1913, Washington, D.C. (Source: Library of Congress)

Women's History

59 Posts

Mary Church Terrell stands with three African American men in 1953. (Reprinted with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection, © Washington Post.)

Black History

86 Posts

Popular Content

George Washington’s Overdue Books

Was the father of our country a deadbeat book borrower? Apparently so. In April of 2010, a New York Society Library employee stumbled across the long lost fourteen-volume collection, Common Debates...

November 20, 2012

By Will Hughes
Poe's Washington Excursion

The celebrated, yet ever tormented, writer Edgar Allan Poe, famously spent much of his life living in Baltimore and Richmond, but he surprisingly spent very little time in D.C. despite residing in...

October 30, 2017

By Emily Robinson
The Maryland Snallygaster: Devil of Racist Politics

Legend tells of a beast that flies over Middletown, Maryland looking for prey to drag back to its lair on Catoctin Mountain. The creature, a half-bird half-reptile, had “huge wings, a long pointed...

December 4, 2024

By Jake Seboe
Whatever Happened to the Flower Girl?

The Vietnam War left a number of indelible images burned in our collective psyche, but few encapsulated the anti-war movement here at home more than Marc Riboud's 1967 photograph of a flower girl...

August 30, 2017

By Richard Brownell

Not sure what to read? Let's pick a story for you!

Surprise me!

Did you know? We made the D.C. Metro into a time machine!

Explore our Metro map inspired by historical events and sites rooted in the neighborhoods that surround each station. Hop aboard! Take a ride and learn on your commute.

Check out the Historic D.C. Metro Map

Featured Topics

Popular Content

Not sure what to read? Let's pick a story for you!

Did you know? We made the D.C. Metro into a time machine!

Love D.C. History? Support WETA!