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.
One of the most memorable neighborhood block parties in recent memory kicked into gear as the Olympic flame came to Washington in the summer of 1996. From Rockville to Reston, area residents got into the Olympic spirit as they welcomed the unusual guest.
“There ain’t no party like an R.E. party, cause an R.E. party don’t stop.” Rare Essence, known around the DMV as “the most wickedest band alive,” has been one of the region’s most popular go-go acts for over 40 years despite several setbacks which could have easily ended the party.
In the winter of 1969, the Washington Senators baseball club was in transition. After a flirtation with comedian Bob Hope, the team had just been sold to transportation magnate Bob Short. Short, who looked across town and saw the Washington Redskins hire legendary coach Vince Lombardi, was looking for his own splashy hire – “a storybook manager, the kind people dream about” who could be the savior he felt the franchise needed. The answer? Ted Williams.
April 14th, 1865 marks the date of one of the most shocking and memorable events in Washington and American history: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. By 10:30 p.m. that night, the President’s death was looking imminent, and after hearing this news just two blocks over at 7th and D Streets NW, Gustave Lansburgh, owner of Lansburgh & Bros. Fancy Goods Agency, decided to start decorating his store in mourning black. It was this small decision that would transform Lansburgh’s dry goods store into one of the most prosperous Washington department stores for the next 113 years.
Called the "Forgotten War," the Korean War has been overshadowed by better-known conflicts in American history. The fight to remember it began in the 1950s, but it wouldn't be until the 1990s that a memorial would be built in Washington.
To be, or not to be on Capitol Hill: that was the question. For D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre, the answer was not to be. After a six-year residency at the Folger Shakespeare Library, located behind the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, the theatre company set off in 1992 to make a new home for itself in Penn Quarter downtown at the former site of Lansburgh’s Department store.
In the midst of the final countdown to the new millennium at 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 1999, people were waiting for more than confetti to fly and the ball to drop. Eyes around the world were locked on computer systems to see if the technology would advance with the clock. As news outlets had warned the public for months, the so-called Y2K bug was expected to affect, and potentially paralyze thousands of computer systems worldwide, and WMATA was taking no chances when it came to making sure Metro would be running when the year 2000 arrived.
On June 11, 1989, 8,000 WHFS 99.1 listeners crowded into the parking lot in front of Joe’s Record Paradise in Wheaton, Maryland for an eight hour concert to protest, station owner, Duchossois Inc.’s, decision to remove Damian Einstein from the airways. Damian introduced the DMV to the newest music before it exploded on the national scene, and his sudden absence from the airways shocked WHFS’s most loyal fans who feared that Duchossois intended to move on from the progressive rock format. Centered on the freewheeling deejay, the progressive rock format defined WHFS defined the station since 1968.
Fans were right to be concerned. Over the course of the next decade, WHFS ditched the deejay for “gold-throated “on-air personalities who aired songs from corporately manufactured playlists. While these changes initially earned the station a score of new fans, by the end of the decade, it was clear that WHFS lost the loyal support of their “bumper-stickered fans” who felt as if they lost a friend.
