Boundary Stones

In the 1940s, civil rights activists discovered that the key to ending segregation in D.C.’s restaurants might be hiding in plain sight at the library. Civil Rights researchers discovered two old D.C. laws which made it a crime for restaurants to refuse service based on race. As Jim Crow tightened its grip, the laws had faded from memory but Mary Church Terrell was determined to bring them back.

George Cassiday, an unemployed army veteran from Southeast Washington, D.C. known as "The Man in the Green Hat," kept spirits flowing on Capitol Hill for 10 years. Despite the 18th amendment, he filled 25 orders per day for hard-drinking representatives and even had an office in the House Office building. But after he got in trouble with the D.C. police, Cassiday decided to expose his customers.

After Benito Mussolini’s execution in 1945, American psychiatrist Dr. Winfred Overholser of St. Elizabeth’s psychiatric hospital had a hunch that some medical condition might have to been to blame for the dictator’s extreme behavior. So he had samples of his brain sent to Washington, D.C., so that he could examine them. And then, one of the samples went missing.

In the late 1950s, D.C.'s Curtis Brothers Furniture Store partnered with Bassett Furniture, which built the World's Largest Chair – a 19.5 foot tall, 4600 pound Duncan Phyfe -- and installed it outside their showroom in Anacostia. Then, they built a glass apartment atop the chair and convinced 19-year-old Lynn Arnold to live there in plain view, 24-7.

In the winter of 1979, thousands of farmers drove their tractors to Washington, D.C., to demand agriculture policy reform. Their protests caused gridlock—until a blizzard hit on Presidents Day. The farmers sprang into action, plowing roads, delivering supplies and rescuing stranded residents, turning frustration into appreciation.

In 1913, thousands of women from across the United States gathered in Washington, D.C. to parade for the right to vote. But when belligerent, drunken men crashed the route, the suffrage march became a street fight.

At almost midnight on July 2, 1915 a bomb ripped through the U.S. Capitol. At the time, it was the most violent attack on the halls of Congress since the British torched the building during the War of 1812. The next morning, as police in Washington analyzed a note left by the bomber, financier J.P. Morgan, Jr. was shot at his home on Long Island. Was it possible that the same man was responsible?

In the 1930s, Jimmy “The Gentleman Gambler” Lafontaine made millions running the largest casino between New York and Florida from the D.C./Maryland line, despite the fact that gambling was completely illegal. But the city loved him, the police were in his pocket and business was booming — until the mob wanted in on the action.

When American fisheries were declining in the 1870s, the U.S. Fish Commission decided to build a giant fish farm on the National Mall and raise imported carp to restock waterways. What could go wrong?

In 1951, a contest to compose an official song for Washington, D.C. attracted thousands of entries and the winning tune was widely celebrated. So why haven't most Washingtonians ever heard it?

Rats in Washington, D.C. have always been bad – in the 1960s, the city had as many rats as people — but one local civil rights activist Julius Hobson decided to do something about it: to protest the lack of rat patrols in Black neighborhoods, he would capture rats in Shaw and near Northeast and release them in swanky, upscale Georgetown. Alive.