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“Immaculate” and “modern to the nth degree” read a Washington Post ad one December day in 1930. Sounds intriguing, but what dazzling, new technology was it describing? A television set? One of those new electric razors? Penicillin?

The answer: a strip mall.

In the summer of 1969, thousands of young people gathered together to attend a festival showcasing many of the greatest musicians of their generation. Huddled around each other in the mud, these counterculture youth engaged in a capstone event to the rebellious and liberating 1960s.

“To describe this shopping center in words is a bit difficult because of its extremely high efficiency in the use of every square foot.”

For the past 18 years, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has hosted the First Person program each summer. These programs are open to the public, and allow musuem visitors to listen to personal stories of Holocaust survivors, and to engage with them.

The Who vs. Led Zeppelin... It's one of the eternal questions argued by classic rock aficionados — which of these legendary bands rocked the hardest?

On November 17, 1927 one of the fiercest storms our area has ever seen touched down near Old Town Alexandria. With winds estimated at 125 mph, it ripped through Alexandria, D.C. and Prince Georges County within minutes, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Think the impacts of the Dust Bowl were only felt in the Great Plains? Think again. In the spring of 1935, a dust storm nearly blocked out the sun above Washington, alarming local citizens and spurring Congress to take action on soil erosion policy.

On June 8, 1918, Washingtonians looked to the sky hoping to see… well… something. But, many weren’t quite sure exactly what. As the Evening Star noted:

At 4:45 p.m. on January 31, 1930 the “new and shaky ensemble known tentatively as the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C.” took the stage of the recently finished DAR Constitution Hall at eighteenth and C streets northwest.

In the summer of 1892 Washingtonians had their hearts broken. After 12 years of conducting the United States Marine Band, John Philip Sousa, D.C. native and beloved conductor, submitted his resignation to the U.S. Marine Corps.