Silver Spring

How did Silver Spring, Maryland land one of the prettiest, most mystical-sounding names in the Washington, D.C. area? Was there really a magical silver spring that once flowed through the area? Is it as pretty and idyllic as it sounds? Actually, that's exactly where the name comes from: a "silver spring."

Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring, shook the nation and helped launch the modern environmental movement. But before the book came out, Carson was already making her case in Silver Spring, Maryland. When a local homeowners' association asked her to speak about pesticide use in the neighborhood, she abandoned her prepared remarks and spoke instead about the link between chemicals and cancer. It was, in Carson’s estimation, “a fair little test of the reception that may be given the book.”

Rock superstar David Bowie, sold 140 million albums in a career that spanned more than four decades and earned fame as perhaps the genre's most flamboyantly inventive performer. But in January of 1971, he was still a largely unknown singer-songwriter who began his first visit to America with a house party in Silver Spring, Maryland.