Casey Ruken

Casey is a Film & Video Studies graduate with a Paleontology minor at George Mason University. The son of a US diplomat, he grew up in nine countries around the world, where he developed an appreciation for history, culture and nature. Those countries are Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, Romania, Jordan, Kenya, Turkey, the US and Senegal. In his free time, he loves reading, visiting museums, and watching the most ridiculous monster movies imaginable.

Posts by this Author

War is hell, so they say. But nobody told Washington's elite in July 1861, when politicians armed with picnic baskets and champagne came to watch the first battle of the Civil War, and nearly got killed as a result.

From Emperor Hirohito to Nikita Khrushchev, D.C. has received adversaries with open arms. But it's not everyday when the defeated foe of a war against the United States becomes a hero, and the Army general who defeated him becomes a villain in the eyes of the nation. That's what happened when the Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph, visited Washington in 1879.

Walking through DC, you may notice faded fallout shelter signs marking buildings. They are some of the last clues of a historic past when the federal government designated thousands of shelters throughout DC to save Washingtonians from a nuclear apocalypse. But would they have worked?

You know Neoclassical architecture. But do you know why Brutalism came to D.C.? Discover how a time of changing architectural styles paved the way for Brutalism to dominate D.C.'s federal buildings.

You might think today is rough, but if people lived in the DMV 35 million years ago, they would have faced a cosmic apocalypse in their very own backyards.

D.C. may have been built by humans, but before there were people anywhere, the region was home to some seriously spectacular prehistoric creatures. Meet five of our favorites!

If you were a western settler in the 1870s looking for a home where the buffalo roamed, you might have had a hard time finding one. Homes on the range saw ever-dwindling numbers of buffalo (officially known as American bison), due to systematic campaigns of extermination that targeted not only bison, but gray wolves and cougars as well. Enter William Temple Hornaday, a hunter and taxidermist who witnessed the near extinction of the bison and decided that “preservation . . . is an imperative duty, for otherwise it will be too late.”

Huntley Meadows Park near Alexandria treats visitors to over 1,500 acres of restored wetlands, forests, and meadows. It is home to a stunning diversity of wildlife, all visible from a boardwalk, observation tower and trails. But if Henry Woodhouse, an aviation enthusiast with a shady past, had gotten his way, this gorgeous slice of Northern Virginia might have become the biggest airport in the world.