On October 11, 1987, Washingtonians woke up to an elaborate quilt blanketing the National Mall, with 1,920 panels stitching together the memory of thousands of individuals who had succumbed to the AIDS epidemic in America. The AIDS Memorial Quilt helped push the disease into mainstream America's consciousness. But for Washington's gay community, the battle against AIDS had been raging for almost a decade.
On June 8, 1939, a royal train rolled into Track 20 at Union Station. The station had been cleaned and shined, the columns lining the track had a fresh coat of green and white paint, and a blue carpet was rolled out from the platform to the newly redecorated station reception room. The visitors arriving in Washington that day were King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who made unprecedented history by becoming the first reigning British monarchs to ever set foot on American soil. Of the various activities that the King took part in during his stay, the irony of his visit to Mount Vernon was, quite possibly, the most intriguing.
This may be hard to believe, but once upon a time record companies did not believe the Beatles could have a successful career in America. Yes, you read that right. The Beatles. Not having success. Crazy right? Luckily, for all of us, one teenager knew better and lit the fuse for Beatlemania with a simple letter to her local D.C. radio station.
When readers of the Washington Evening Star opened their papers on August 25, 1933 they needed no reminder of what had just befallen the city. Two days earlier, the fiercest storm the nation’s capital had seen in decades pushed a wall of water up the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River. In a matter of hours, over six inches of rain fell on D.C. 51-mph winds toppled trees. Floodwaters submerged highways. Roofs were torn off buildings. A train crossing the Anacostia River was swept off its tracks. The list went on… Damage was even worse in Ocean City, yet the storm was also a cause for celebration. Huh?
By 1875, the old Congressional Library had completely exhausted its shelf space, and the Library's new building was not completed until February 1897. Although the 20 year wait for the physical structure was a long one, it seemed that the months between the building’s completion in February 1897 and its opening day on November 1, 1897 were the longest of all. Throughout these nine months, librarians and engineers joined together to try and solve one major problem: how would they move all of the Library’s contents the quarter of a mile distance from the Capitol to the new library without “loss, damage, and confusion.” The answer? Book chutes.
In the summer of 2011, basketball fans across the country weren't sure when they would ever get to see their favorite NBA players in action again due to labor strife. Luckily for those right here in the District, a community streetball league based in Southeast offered up the perfect solution to get some of the game's top talent on the court and competing again, and managed to turn a small gym in Northeast, D.C. into the center of the basketball universe for one special night.
It used to be that presidential pets were considered nothing special, but after World War I, Washingtonians were looking for happy news — and they got it in the form of a happy-go-lucky dog that changed how Americans looked at animals who lived in the White House.
Go-go music is a signature Washington, D.C. sound and the D.C. Public Library has started an archive to preserve its history. Archivist Derek Gray is leading the charge and is seeking heirlooms related to the D.C. go-go scene: CDs and audio recordings of Chuck Brown and other go-go artists, flyers, posters, event advertisements, photographs, videos, DVDs, and other memorabilia. Help preserve the legacy of D.C.’s homegrown sound for future generations!
In 2005, Ethiopian restaurateurs led a campaign to rename a strip of Ninth Street between U and T Little Ethiopia, to reflect the contributions that Ethiopians made to the Shaw neighborhood over the previous decade. These business leaders faced backlash, however, from Shaw’s African-American community who thought the renaming campaign discounted the neighborhood’s proud African-American history.
As the United States entered World War I, women became a vital part of the war effort. The Navy created a single unit of African-American Yeomanettes, which was assigned to Washington D.C.'s Navy Yard, and quickly made an impression.