On June 2, 1889, heavy rains caused massive flooding in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and overwhelmed the South Fork Dam. The storm also hit the Washington, DC, area. As a result, the Potomac River flooded and areas around Pennsylvania Avenue were under…

During the fall and winter months of 1934, the Washington Monument was prepped for repairs and cleaning, due to cracking at the base. Scaffolding was built around the 550-foot monument to allow the workers to make the repairs with Public Works…

Restoration of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool began in November 2010. The two-year, $30.7 million renovation project almost completely rebuilt the structure. The 1923 original pool was built on an unstable foundation that sank and cracked. The…

This view down Pennsylvania Avenue NW from the corner of 6th Street shows part of Washington near the Mall around 1860. On the corner in the foreground, where the Newseum is today, stood the National Hotel, one of the most prominent hotels in the…

There was a hotel on this part of Pennsylvania Avenue starting in 1805. In 1820 the business was bought by Jesse Brown in 1820 and the place was renamed Brown's Indian Queen Hotel. The hotel was popular with out of town visitors and congressmen…

The original building which housed the Department of Agriculture was designed in 1867 by Adolf Cluss, the same architect who designed the Smithsonian Arts and Industry Building. For decades, this building housed offices, research laboratories, and…

The Art of Revolution, a group who uses symbolic events to spark political action and social change, staged the "One Million Bones" exhibit on the National Mall June 8-10, 2013. This event laid out one million handcrafted "bones" on the central green…