Washington, D.C.

For decades, streetcars were the backbone of Washington, D.C. transit. But in the 1950s, the system started to come undone due to politics, labor strife, and tanking ridership. On January 28, 1962, D.C.'s streetcar made its last, funeral‑like run.

There have certainly been worse fires, but the Willard Hotel blaze of 1922 caused quite a stir. It resulted in $400,000 — about $5,400,000 today — in damages to the grand hotel and sent some of the District's most distinguished citizens and guests out into the street in their pajamas. Some just moved a little more quickly than others. Apparently, emergency procedures were a little different back then.

J.D. Salinger, one of the most important American writers of the 20th century, was deeply influenced by Indian philosophy and religion. But that spiritual quest, curiously, led him to not to Varanasi or some other city in India, but to Washington, D.C.

On August 8, 1873, a steamboat ride down the Potomac turned into a nighmare when a fire broke out on the Wawaset. Panic, sinking lifeboats, and harrowing rescues left Washington reeling.

In 1973,The Exorcist, was a box office smash. Set in D.C., the film chronicles a Roman Catholic priest's struggle to save a 12-year-old girl from demonic possession. But The Exorcist has another, even more unsettling connection to the Washington area. William Peter Blatty, who wrote both the screenplay and the bestselling 1971 novel from which it was derived, was inspired by an actual case in which a 14-year-old Prince George's County boy was purportedly was possessed by the devil.

We look back at the life and vision of Elizabeth Campbell, WETA's founder and a pillar in the Washington, D.C. area community. Thank you for everything, Mrs. Campbell. We still feel your impact today.

Marion Barry has been called the "Mayor for Life," but in 1978, he was just getting started. He narrowly defeated incumbent mayor Walter E. Washington and D.C. Council Chairman Stanley Tucker in the Democratic primary, and then coasted to victory over Republican Arthur Fletcher in the general election. A new era of D.C. politics had begun.

As many realtors will tell you, the first three rules of real estate are, “location, location, location.” Well, in the late 1960s, location presented a very serious problem for transit planners and the congregation of the Adas Israel synagogue. Construction of Metro’s Red Line was getting underway and WMATA had acquired the block bounded by 5^th,  6^th,  F and G Streets, NW to serve as a staging area and, eventually, the home of Metro’s headquarters. There was only one problem. The block was also the home of Washington’s first synagogue building, which had been standing on the site since 1876.

In the summer of 1861 the Confederate States found themselves annoyed by the U.S.S. Pawnee, a gunboat that patrolled the Potomac and made it difficult for the southerners to receive supplies from northern sympathizers. Fortunately for the Confederates, Col. Richard Thomas Zarvona had a plan...

Nelson Mandela, who died December 5, 2013, was mourned worldwide as the leader who beat Apartheid and then worked to promote reconciliation and racial tolerance in South Africa. But just months after he was freed from a South African prison, Mandela created a sensation — and some tense, discomforting moments — when he visited the U.S. and met with then-President George H. W. Bush at the White House.

December 6, 1877 was a big day in local journalism as D.C.'s longest running local rag, The Washington Post, published its first issue. For three pennies readers got four pages of news. Sounds like a pretty good deal.

On Oct. 5, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson and visiting Philippines President Diosdado Macapagal rode a 25-minute noontime parade through downtown Washington. It was an unremarkable presidential event except for one unsettling detail: the car in which they rode was the same customized black 1961 Lincoln in which President John F. Kennedy had been killed less than a year earlier.