Henry was a noted scientist in the United States when he was selected to serve as the first Secretary, or chief executive officer, of the new Smithsonian Institution in 1846. He served for 30 years, developing the new museum as a center for research,…

This detail of Adolph Sachse's stylized bird's-eye view of Washington highlights the section of the National Mall west of the US Capitol on present-day 6th Street. The National Mall was still parkland, a series of gardens, experimental plots, and…

On July 2, 1881, a deranged Charles Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railway Station. Guiteau was an unsuccessful lawyer, evangelist, and insurance salesman, who thought that the President owed him a government…

The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad, a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad, crossed the National Mall between 1870 and 1907. Sheds for waiting trains and empty freight cars extended into the parklands of the National Mall. As the population grew…

The Treasury Department is one of the oldest government departments. It was among those established when the federal government moved to Washington in 1800. The first Treasury Department building was damaged by fire in 1801 and completely destroyed…

After weeks of wet weather, thousands of spectators and participants trudged through the mud along Pennsylvania Avenue for President Abraham Lincoln's second Inauguration. This inaugural parade was the first to include African Americans as…

In 1870 the Army Corps of Engineers, headed by Major Nathaniel Michler, began dredging the Potomac to remove silt and improve ship traffic. Dredged material was dumped into the tidal flats along the Washington waterfront. In 1875 the project was…

In 1860, the first baseball clubs in Washington, DC, the Nationals and the Potomacs, played a game on the field south of the White House, then known as the White Lot. The field was originally open to baseball enthusiasts of all races, but became…

Even before President Abraham Lincoln officially created a Department of Agriculture in 1862, the Bureau of Agriculture, part of the Patent Office, was growing crops on the National Mall, conducting research, and distributing seeds across the…

The Tripoli Monument was commissioned by members of the US Navy's Mediterranean fleet in memory of 6 officers who died during the Barbary Wars of the early 1800s. Built in Italy in 1806, the monument came to the US on board the USS Constitution and…