A painting in the historic Cathedral Basilica depicts Jesus and his disciples dining on a traditional Peruvian menu.

Death rituals and sacrifice inside a Peruvian megalith.

FDR's Art Deco hospital tower was hopelessly inefficient.

Look closely and you’ll notice that the color changes a third of the way up the tower.

The grand marble structure next to the White House is Andrew Carnegie's temple to Pan-American diplomacy.

A derelict bit of infrastructure from the canal that once ran through D.C. is landlocked in the heart of the city.

The beloved statue at the National Academy of Sciences is oh so inviting to sit on.

Decades before the scandal, this staircase on the river was a literal "water gate."

The national park was once a plantation estate.

At 207 feet, one of the world's longest continuous escalators.

The first purpose-built art gallery in the United States is once again open as a center of craft arts.

Legend has it that President Grant’s frequent drinking in the lobby gave rise to the term “lobbyist.”

This unacceptably tall building was the real reason for Washington, D.C.'s skyscraper ban.

A much-maligned monument to teetotalism.

Home to items never before seen by the public.

The 5.5-mile ring of steel posts around the Capitol Building is one of the largest (and most uniform) of its kind in the world.

One critic described it as "middle Mussolini, early Ramses, and late Neiman-Marcus." Another called it an architectural "natural disaster."

A hidden gem on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Fittingly, America's museum of architecture is itself a magnificently designed old building.

This seemingly out-of-place gas station by the Watergate hotel was once described as the most expensive gas station in the world.

The little-known, 300-year history of the area includes former lives as a bustling tobacco port, parking lot, and industrial dump.

Before Metro, Washington had a robust streetcar network—and you see the remains of this infrastructure if you know where to look.

The site of the climactic scene from the classic horror film is now a historic landmark.

This poor little statue is the most vandalized memorial in Washington.