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Prisoner No. 9653

October 31, 2015 - It is hard to imagine in 2015 that a man could run for president from behind the bars of a federal penitentiary and rece...

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A President's Best Friend

October 30, 2015 - Handsome and debonair, President Warren Harding found himself in 1921 at the helm of a country at peace and increasingly...

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Life in the Big Chair

October 29, 2015 - Public life is rarely completely transparent, although Washington was home to one unique attempt. In 1960, long before w...

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A Second Jefferson Memorial

October 28, 2015 - October 28, 1965 is the day the St. Louis arch came together. The project had begun as an effort to build the national m...

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Benchmark at the President's Park

October 27, 2015 - The closest many come to power in Washington, DC is the park just across the street. Protests have taken place in Lafaye...

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Andrew Jackson, Ghosthunter

October 26, 2015 - Legend has it that Andrew Jackson personally went to investigate one of the most famous hauntings in American history, t...

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Two Dollars of Fear, Loathing, and Fun

October 25, 2015 - Paying with a two dollar bill can get you arrested, even though It is legal tender for all debts, public and private. Cl...

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The Night in White Satin

October 24, 2015 - Clara Harris wore a dress of white satin to the theater with her fiance Henry Rathbone and the President and Mrs. Lincol...

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All the President's Hats

October 23, 2015 - When Calvin Coolidge was President, a man was in danger if he wore a straw hat after September 15. While the social faux...

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What's Going On

October 22, 2015 - Few people channel the soul of an era like Marvin Gaye. Born in Washington, DC in 1939, he first learned music in his fa...

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All Correct, Old Kinderhook

October 21, 2015 - President Martin Van Buren sometimes gets the credit for the invention of the word most associated with Americans. His 1...

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War of the Roses and the Marigolds

October 20, 2015 - In 1986, the Rose became the national flower of the United States, but not without a fight from a Marigold man. In 1959,...

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George and Martha's Escaped Slaves

October 19, 2015 - Washington's devotion to liberty did not extend to his human property. He hired slave catchers when that property escape...

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America's First Foreign War

October 18, 2015 - When Thomas Jefferson took office as President in 1800, he had a choice: continue to pay as much as a million dollars a...

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Arlington Cemetery's Uncle Jim

October 17, 2015 - Jim Parks was born as a slave on the land of Arlington National Cemetery. He and the land then belonged to George Washin...

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Fruit Plates and Iced Tea with Harry and Bess

October 16, 2015 - Harry Truman, out of office in January, was restless by June. He revved up the engine in his new 1953 Chrysler New Yorke...

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The Four First Presidents

October 15, 2015 - Washington is only the first President if you don't count the period after the American revolutionaries won the war but...

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Duel Tragedy

October 14, 2015 - If politics seems murderous, at one time it was literally so. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, men in Washington...

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Kilroy: Still Here

October 13, 2015 - For American GI's of WWII, there is no more familiar phrase than Kilroy Was Here. The phrase was scribbled all over Euro...

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Troubled at the Top

October 12, 2015 - The Washington Post became the top paper in town during the reign of CEO Philip Graham. His marriage to Katharine Meyer...

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A Two Million Dollar Penny

October 11, 2015 - The first coin produced by the US Mint, a copper penny, is now worth over two million dollars. Unpopular because the des...

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Visiting Helen Keller in Washington

October 10, 2015 - Helen Keller's deep ties to Washington DC began when her parents contacted Washington resident Alexander Graham Bell, wh...

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Hidden in Plain Sight

October 09, 2015 - Certainly the only memorial to a cigar maker to be found in Washington, The Samuel Gompers Memorial is also the only one...

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Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover

October 08, 2015 - Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover had an airport named after him before he became President. Named Hoover Field in 19...

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Jail for the Ladies

October 07, 2015 - The suffragette movement began in the mid-nineteenth century, but by the turn of the 20th, had seen little progress. Few...

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The Trend Setting Mr. Pleasonton

October 06, 2015 - Augustus Pleasonton, retired Civil War general, thought he had made a breakthrough scientific discovery: that blue light...

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Murray The Outlaw of Fala Hill

October 05, 2015 - Simply known as Fala, Murray the Outlaw of Fala Hill was the full name of President Franklin Roosevelt's dog. Roosevelt...

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Coming Home to Washington

October 04, 2015 - How do two unknown men get a memorial by a famous sculptor near the White House? Archibald Butt and Francis Millet were...

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Saving Lincoln: True Adventure of the First Woman Detective

October 03, 2015 - Without Pinkerton detectives like Kate Warne, it is likely Lincoln would have been killed before he took office. She hel...

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The Obstinate Mr. Burnes

October 02, 2015 - David Burnes owned the land where Washington wanted the White House built. Washington found it difficult to reach an agr...

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The Third Black Senator

October 01, 2015 - In 1870, the first black senator, Hiram Revels, took his seat in the US Senate in 1870 amid hope that non-white citizens...

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