Washington, D.C.

On March 10, 1977, twelve armed Hanafi militants seized three Washington buildings and nearly 150 hostages to protest against the release of the film, Mohammed, Messenger of God and law enforcement's investigation into the murders of seven Hanafis four years earlier. The standoff that followed reverberated for years.

When architect Thomas Franklin Schneider built a 12-story building called The Cairo in 1894, it dazzled and infuriated Washington—so much that neighbors and Congress moved to ban skyscrapers, forever changing the city’s skyline.

One of the big challenges to writing a history blog is finding good images. Well, things just got a lot easier with Getty's announcement that it is making up to 35 million images available for bloggers to embed in their sites for free. The company has created a new embed tool that allows images to be shared and includes proper photo credit information. 

Director Steve McQueen's Oscar-winning film, 12 Years a Slave, serves to highlight a horrific and shameful part of local history — the area's role as a transit depot and resale market for humans held in involuntary servitude. The acclaimed film tells the true story of Solomon Northup, a free African-American violinist who in 1841 traveled from his home in New York to Washington, DC, with the promise of a high-paying job as a circus musician. He didn't know that his prospective employers actually were slave traders. 

In 1978, the FBI rented a swank rowhouse at 4407 W Street NW as the covert base for the Abscam sting operation in which a U.S. Senator, six members of the U.S. House, and assorted other local and state-level politicians in New Jersey were convicted of accepting bribes from a fictitious favor-seeking Middle Eastern sheik. The operation later inspired the film American Hustle.

In February 1964, the Beatles made their first visit to the United States, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show before making their way down to Washington, D.C. for their first public concert at the Washington Coliseum on 3rd St. NE. To celebrate the 50th anniversary, the D.C. Preservation League and Douglas Development and recreated that historic show at the Washington Coliseum. Who says you can't turn back time?

Valentine’s Days were unusually eventful for Theodore Roosevelt and family, as this date marked some of the happiest and darkest periods in their lives. 

After their first American concert at the Washington Coliseum on February 11, 1964, the Beatles rushed to a British Embassy charity ball. There, they found chaos — snatched hair, desperate autograph seekers, and a night they would never forget.

On February 11, 1964 the Beatles played their first U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum to a screaming crowd of 8,000. Cavernous noise, jellied beans and a shaky sound system turned a historic debut into organized chaos — and changed Rock 'n' Roll forever.

It's hard to imagine that anyone would think the Beatles might not be a big enough concert draw. But when Harry G. Lynn, owner of the old Washington Coliseum at 3rd and M streets NE, was approached by local radio station WWDC in late 1963 about the possibility of booking the then-nascent British pop music sensations for their debut U.S. concert on Feb. 11, 1964,  he wasn't convinced that he would be able to sell the 8,000-plus tickets that it would take to fill his arena.

Pete Seeger was a performer whose art was intertwined in close harmony with a slew of social causes, ranging from civil rights and the organized labor movement to environmentalism. While Seeger lived most of his life in upstate New York, Seeger's twin passions for music and activism often brought him to Washington, where his calm eloquence and forthrightness gave him influence in the White House — and also subjected him to peril. 

On January 28, 1962, Washington's original streetcar system road the rails for the final time. That last run ended 99 and a half years of service to the nation's capital as buses replaced the trolleys as the primary means of mass transit in the District. So, how did we get to that point?