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The story of Abraham Lincoln&rsquo;s assassination is well known.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s less known is the role this Chinese restaurant played in the saga.&nbsp; 
What today is Wok and Roll, a mediocre restaurant in Chinatown, was once a boarding house owned by Mary Surratt.&nbsp; Surratt was a rebel sy

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Assassination with a Side of Lo Mein 

Washington DC is known for memorials to great Americans &ndash; Abraham Lincoln, Mary McLoud Bethune, Franklin Roosevelt, and Sonny Bono.
Yes, Sonny Bono is memorialized in a small park in downtown Washington.
For those of you who don&rsquo;t remember, Sonny Bono was half of the married pop duo Sonn

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Sonny Bono marker

 Sonny Bono Park 

In the off season, I enjoy randomly walking through Arlington National Cemetery.&nbsp; I love the quiet dignity of the honored dead at rest in their final formation.
It&rsquo;s one of my favorite places to bring visitors.&nbsp; And one of the questions I always get is Why are some grave markers larg

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Markers at Arlington National Cemetery:  Size Doesn't Matter

George Marshall is the most important American you&rsquo;ve never heard of.
He is the model of selfless public service.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s 5-star army general.&nbsp; Organizes victory in WWII, saves Europe from famine and communism after the war, and serves as both secretary of State and Defense,
A Pe

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The Most Important American You've Never Heard Of

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born in DC in 1899 and grew up in a house which used to stand on what is now Ward Place NW in the West End neighborhood. &nbsp;Both his parents were musicians. &nbsp; And while he was given piano lessons, what he heard in a local poolhall most shaped his young int

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The Duke of DC

Outside the British Embassy on Washington&rsquo;s Embassy Row is Winston Churchill, a statue with a foot in two countries. Churchill&rsquo;s father was the Duke of Marlborough. But his mother was an American from Brooklyn, NY. So, when it came time to commemorate Churchill&rsquo;s life, planting a b

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Churchill’s Statue: Feet In Two Countries

OK, let&rsquo;s end this myth once and for all: &nbsp;Washington, DC was never a swamp. Only one percent of today&rsquo;s city could ever be defined as swamp, and that was spread out over six different sites. That&rsquo;s not to say it didn&rsquo;t feel like a swamp as anyone who&rsquo;s been here i

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Washington Was Never a Swamp

The most unusual memorial to a president in Washington, DC is the one to our 26th chief executive. Theodore Roosevelt gets an entire island to his memory. Located in the Potomac River between Georgetown and Rosslyn, Va., Theodore Roosevelt Island is a fitting tribute to this president who ensured so

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Theodore Roosevelt Gets His Own Island

Until last month our country had no national memorial commemorating World War I.
In 1919 Congress debated constructing such a memorial, but aside from creating the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, nothing was done. So, after the war it was up to towns and cities across the country to decide how to remem

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The New World War I Memorial

Everyone knows where the president lives. But few know that the vice president also has an official residence.
Historically the office of vice president was rather unimportant. John Nance Gardner of Texas, known as Cactus Jack, who gave up the powerful position of Speaker of the House to be VP said 

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Where does the vice president live?

Arlington National Cemetery is the resting place for people from all walks of life, including some accomplished actors.
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Lee Marvin was a popular character actor from Broadway to television to the big screen. He was in numerous movies including, The Dirty Dozen and had an Academy Award winnin

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Actors at Arlington National Cemetery

Washington National Cathedral is one of my favorite places to take visitors. Styling itself as a House of Prayer for All People, it is a masterpiece of gothic architecture, stained glass, music, hand carved wood, and wrought iron.
Regrettably it&rsquo;s closed right now but one of its lessor known s

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Inside the Bishop’s Garden

Washington&rsquo;s cherry blossoms attract thousands of visitors (but not in 2021) to the city. But visitors BEWARE the National Cherry Blossom Festival does not necessarily coincide with cherry blossoms blooming! Make no mistake, the Festival is a blast &mdash; a parade, fireworks, entertainment, f

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Nature, Not the Festival, Determine Blossom Blooming

One of the newer sites in Washington is the Dwight D Eisenhower Memorial. It&rsquo;s in a very convenient location for many visitors. Across the street from the Air and Space Museum and diagonal from the National Museum of the American Indian. And just two blocks away from the National Botanic Garde

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The New Eisenhower Memorial

The Federal Triangle section of Washington exudes the power of our democracy. Wedged between 6th and 15th Streets and Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues, the ten buildings of Federal Triangle are exactly what you&rsquo;d expect from structures that are meant to convey strength, confidence, and st

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Murder Bay Becomes Federal Triangle

While visiting the Washington National Cathedral&rsquo;s Bishop&rsquo;s Garden, I came across a plaque commemorating the donation of the garden&rsquo;s sprinkler system by the family of Frank Gardiner Wisner. The name seemed familiar.
Frank Wisner is responsible for some of the most reprehensible ac

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The Spy’s Sprinkler System

On the four corners of Lafayette Square across the street from the White House are statues of heroes of our Revolutionary War, without whom, victory would have been very difficult. And they all have one thing in common: None of them were American.
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marqu

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Four Foreigners on DC’s Lafayette Square

On Sheridan Circle along Embassy Row one is surrounded by elaborate Gilded Age mansions that have been converted into embassies. They&rsquo;re the site of elegant parties and diplomatic intrigue.
But this is also the site of the only act of state-sponsored terrorism to take place in the United State

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Assassination on DC’s Embassy Row

Albert Einstein, everyone&rsquo;s favorite physicist contemplates the universe from his perch on the lawn of the National Academy of Science on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC.
Einstein&rsquo;s best known for developing the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics and numerous other things

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DC’s Phavorite Physicist

In Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill the life of Mary McLeod Bethune is remembered by this sculpture. If you&rsquo;ve been exploring Washington, you may recognize this sculpture has the distinctive style of Richard Berks, whose also did the Albert Einstein statue outside the National Academy of Science a

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Mary McLeod Bethune

One of the things I like best about the WWII Memorial is that it remembers everything and everyone that made victory possible. Because the war wasn&rsquo;t won by only those in combat. It took a monumental effort on the home front to feed and supply our troops.
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The wreaths of oak leav

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Remembering the WWII Home Front in DC and St Simons, Georgia

A demon lives in this house. Or at least one did in 1973 when the movie the Exorcist was filmed in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington.
The Exorcist was a huge hit. Not so much a horror story as a theological thriller. But when we look at the house where the exterior scenes were shot, it&rsquo

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The Exorcist House

Protests happen every day in Washington. &nbsp;Some are big with hundreds of thousands of marchers. &nbsp;Others are just one person with a sign.
Regardless of size, it&rsquo;s one of the things I love about this city &ndash; seeing people gather to exercise their First Amendment rights. And it remi

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DC’s Longest Protest

Its summertime and whether you&rsquo;re at the beach or by a lake you may be looking for a good book. So, I thought I&rsquo;d share with you what I think are some of the best books about Washington, DC.
At the top of my list is All the President&rsquo;s Men by the Washington Post reporters who broke

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Best Books About Washington, DC

The Department of Labor building at the base of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC is nothing special to look at. Built in the 1970s, it&rsquo;s about as uncreative as a government office building can be. But the person it&rsquo;s named after is anything but uncreative. Frances Perkins is the first woma

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DC’s Frances Perkins: Labor Secretary and Saint

The Beatles to the US by storm in 1964. For a country still mourning the tragic death of its young president, the arrival of the Fab Four was a joyous occasion. Two days after they first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show they took a train from New York to Washington. &nbsp;And performed their first c

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The Beatles First US Concert Was In DC

Washington, DC is at the confluence of power, money, and politics. So, it&rsquo;s a natural setting for some great movies. Now lots of movies take place in Washington, but not all of those are filmed here. Brooklyn, Baltimore, and Richmond often stand in for DC since getting permission to film here 

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Best Movies Filmed In DC

For members of Congress who are not wealthy, and there are fewer and fewer of those these days, finding an affordable place to stay in Washington is a challenge. Being a member of Congress pays well, $174,000 a year. But you must have two homes: One in DC for work and one back in your district where

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Where Barack Obama Lived Before Moving to the White House

It was hot the morning of June 17, 1864. At the Washington Arsenal munitions were being made for the Civil War. Twenty-one young women, wearing the constrictive clothing of the time, dresses with high collars and hoop skirts, were sitting at a long table in what was called the choking room.
Their jo

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Twenty-one Women Killed in Washington Arsenal Explosion

When you think of the birth of the information technology industry, you usually think of Seattle or Silicon Valley. But you should really think of the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC because this is where the earliest forms of computing start.
In a building alongside the old C&amp;O Canal 

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The Information Revolution Begins in Georgetown

On Capitol Hill in Washington, DC&rsquo;s in Stanton Park you won&rsquo;t find a statue of Edwin Stanton, but you will find one of Nathanael Greene.
Greene was from a prosperous Quaker family from Rhode Island. And he is probably one of the most under-recognized figures from the revolutionary period

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Nathanael Greene in DC’s Stanton Park

Franklin Square is back! Now rechristened Franklin Park, this long-neglected green space managed by the National Park Service, underwent a $20 million renovation paid for by the city.
And the result is wonderful. The five acres were regraded to make it accessible for all. There are new fountains, an

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Franklin Square Is Back! 

Not all of Washington, DC&rsquo;s landmarks are on the Mall. In the Anacostia neighborhood the landmark is the Big Chair. Standing over 19 feet tall, this is one on the world&rsquo;s largest chairs. It&rsquo;s been a focal point of the neighborhood since 1959. The original chair was made of Honduran

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DC’s Big Chair

The case of KGB Col. Vitaly Yerchenko remains a Cold War spy v. spy mystery. He defects to the US then months later re-defects to the USSR. Did he change his mind, or was that the plan all along? Learn the full story here.

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The Defecting Defector

Stanton Park is named after secretary of war Edwin Stanton who presided over the army in the Civil War. But the statue in Stanton Park is not Edwin Stanton. Surprisingly, there is no statue of Stanton in Stanton Park. But let&rsquo;s be honest: It would be hard to make a heroic statue based on this 

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Stanton Is Not In Stanton Park