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So, imagine you are doing your Saturday afternoon grocery shopping at the local supermarket. All of a sudden a motorcade pulls up. Out pops the Queen of England and the royal prince. They walk into the store and begin to wander the aisles, indulging in the free samples and chatting with customers. Seems pretty far fetched, right? Well, maybe so, but that is exactly what happened to some Maryland shoppers in October 1957.

May 17, 1973 began an enthralling summer of reality television in Washington. That morning Senate Watergate Committee chairman Sam Ervin banged his gavel and launched hearings to investigate the details of the Watergate scandal, which had rocked the nation the previous June. Americans from coast to coast watched with great interest, trying to determine “what the President knew and when he knew it.” (Short answer: He knew a lot and he had known it for a long time.)

It is generally an accepted practice of militaries around the world to not tell the enemy what you plan to do. It’s also a good idea to avoid passing secrets to enemy spies, especially if you know they are enemy spies. Apparently, however, Union troops stationed in Herndon, Virginia didn’t get the memo. Either that or they were too mesmerized by local belle Laura Ratcliffe to think straight. 

Everyone knows that the President lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. But some locals may remember a time when that wasn’t the case. For ten days in August of 1974, the leader of the free world lived in a relatively modest red brick and white clapboard house in Alexandria, Virginia and commuted to the Oval Office each morning. Life changed pretty quickly for Gerald Ford that summer.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, visited Washington, D.C. in 1862, as the Capital was gearing up for war against the Confederacy. If you remember Hawthorne at all from school, you won’t be surprised to find he had a lot to say.

All we know for sure is that Stonewall Jackson's left arm was buried at Ellwood plantation in 1863. What has happened to it since is anyone's guess.

You know who was just too fabulous for Washington. D.C. to handle? Oscar Wilde. He caused quite a stir when he visited in the January of 1882 as part of a lecture tour on the “Philosophy of Aestheticism”.

Huddie William Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, was a legendary folk and blues musician famed for his twelve‑string guitar virtuosity, powerful voice, and the many standards he popularized. His songs have been covered by artists from Bob Dylan to Led Zeppelin. But one of his lesser known works hits closest to home: "Bourgeois Blues," a searing indictment of racial segregation in Washington, D.C.

During World War II, the We Will Never Die – a Mass Memorial to the Two Million Dead of Europe pageant at Constitution Hall helped bring truth to power about the horrors of the Holocaust. 

As the British attacked and burned Washington, D.C. in August 1914, George Robert Gleig found time to take in the sights and form some opinions.

On April 16, 1862 Congress passed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, freeing more than 3,100 people in the capital months before the Emancipation Proclamation and spawning an annual Emancipation Day celebration that was revived in 2005.

In April 1848, more than 76 enslaved people in Washington, D.C. slipped aboard The Pearl under the cover of darkness and the small schooner set sail down the Potomac. Backed by abolitionists including Daniel Drayton, the voyage promised hope but calm winds and betrayal turned it into one of the most dramatic failed escapes in American history.