The lost and untold history of Washington, DC. New and old content regularly tweeted automagically for your scrolling pleasure.
Washington, D.C.
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In 1986, DC was one of the last places in America where 18-year-olds could legally drink. It took one horrific crash on the Beltway to change everything in 48 hours.
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In 1922, President Harding unveiled DC's only statue of a woman on horseback in Meridian Hill Park. Then in 1978, someone stole her sword and it stayed missing for 33 years.
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In 1912, crowds gathered at all hours, some until midnight, just to watch sculptors chisel a giant marble globe outside Union Station. One slip could ruin everything.
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The day before Wilson's 1913 inauguration, 5,000 women marched up Pennsylvania Ave into a hostile mob. It took an hour to move 10 blocks, and even Helen Keller was too shaken to speak.
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In 1969, students camped on tiny Potomac islands and planted a flag reading "Stop the Bridge." A congressman held DC's Metro hostage to force it through anyway. Here's how they still won.
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In October 1928, a massive German airship floated silently over the White House and Capitol. Even President Coolidge stepped outside, bareheaded, to catch a glimpse.
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In 1860, 70 samurai in silk robes and topknots arrived in DC, drawing crowds of 20,000. One 17-year-old interpreter became such a heartthrob that women chanted his name outside his hotel.
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DC workers numbered every brick of Francis Scott Key's Georgetown house so it could be rebuilt. Then they stacked the pieces by the river and lost the whole thing.
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A sitting US president was once arrested in DC for speeding... on his horse. And the officer who booked him? That story is even more remarkable.
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A boy on tiptoe peers into the candy bins at a Chevy Chase corner store, same as he did in 1975, and 1931, and 1926. How a frame house at Broad Branch and Northampton has survived a century:
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Who was the "objectionable neighbor" so awful they forced a homeowner on Corcoran St. to sell at a loss in 1885? We dug into the 1890 census to meet the block.
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In 1915, D.C. had two entirely separate school systems mapped out block by block. One tiny schoolhouse on Chain Bridge Road was still lit by oil lamps well into the 1920s.
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Zoom into an 1870s photo of Ford's Theatre and you'll spot a shop selling wooden legs, iron legs, even children's legs. The story behind it is stranger than you'd guess.
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A president's dedication, a civil rights leader fresh from a bombing, and a lawsuit against Ben Bradlee for assault at a funeral. All three happened inside one quiet Quaker house on Florida Ave.
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Arlington County was almost called Mount Washington. The twisting tale of how it got its name involves an English earl, George Washington's step-grandson, and a Confederate general's abandoned mansion.
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In 1880, a mob of 1,000 men marched on the DC jail with ropes, demanding a prisoner be handed over. Standing between them and a lynching? US Marshal Frederick Douglass.
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In 1970, an unemployed bread truck driver hijacked a jet to Dulles and demanded $100 million from the Supreme Court. His reason? He believed the IRS shorted him $471.78 on his 1964 taxes.
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In March 1995, a woman scaled a rail, crossed a dirt buffer, dropped into a moat, and swam 26 feet to reach two African lions at the National Zoo. What she told a court clerk hours earlier is the strangest part.
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Tucked in a Foggy Bottom alley sit tiny row houses once crammed with families in under 700 square feet. Today they sell for over half a million. The story of Snows Court says a lot about DC.
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In 1881, Senator John Sherman platted Columbia Heights with streets named Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Kenesaw, and Whitney. By 1905, almost all of them were gone. What happened?
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