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

A tiny monument to the unsuccessful attempt by Thomas Jefferson to place the prime meridian in Washington.

There's an old indoor swimming pool hidden directly underneath the White House Press Briefing Room.

A heroic pigeon that, through a barrage of gunfire, delivered a message that saved over 100 lives in World War I.

Architecture lovers won’t stop touching the National Gallery's 19.5 degree marble prow.

For 60 years, the academy had no permanent location until members voted Washington D.C. as its forever home.

Before Nixon, "watergate" meant canals.

Art deco landmark on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

A much-maligned monument to teetotalism.

A small triangle of DC grass is the final resting place of one of Sonny and Cher's songs.

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

A historic ruin just 20 feet away from a busy highway onramp.

Sit where JFK proposed to Jackie or where Nixon dined on meatloaf at this storied pub.

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

Washington's iconic carousel has a nice piece of Civil Rights history.

A traveling postal dog covered 48 states and more than 140,000 miles, and he lives on as taxidermy, patched up with a rabbit's foot and a pig's ear.

Those with a sharp eye can find the hidden image of a German Shepherd on the memorial's Mural Wall.

The most accurate timepiece in the world.

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

Perhaps the most scandalous statue of America's first president.

The oldest building in the District of Columbia was preserved because of a mistaken connection to George Washington.

A brass plaque dedicated to a convicted cannibal hangs in the National Press Club, and that's not even the craziest part of the story.

The hidden offices underneath Memorial Bridge have been locked up since 1976.

The house where John Wilkes Booth conspired with his co-conspirators.