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.

A 1,100-ton train fell through the floor in 1953. Workers got it patched up in just 72 hours.

This nine-story building is the oldest standing skyscraper in D.C.

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

It was once the base for a series of domestic terror attacks.

Rumor has it the uncarved lump behind the three famous suffragists is reserved for the first woman president.

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

A little marble compass above George Washington's (empty) tomb in the Capitol marks where D.C.'s four quadrants intersect.

The record holder for the world’s largest peach.

Paths are maintained, but trees have taken over plots.

A quirky Poe-themed joint on an island keen to celebrate its overlooked connection to the famous writer.

The North Carolina grounds are leased in perpetuity to the British Commonwealth for as long as the WWII sailors are buried there.

Florida might be at its most surreal in this museum devoted to the famed Spanish artist.

Knoxville’s architectural icon was the symbol of the 1982 World’s Fair, even catching the googly eye of Bart Simpson.

Who needs fancy modern water slides when this giant North Carolina rock works just as well?

The highest point in North Carolina and the United States east of the Mississippi River, Mount Mitchell is named after argumentative explorer Elisha Mitchell.

Traditional Appalachian dances such as the Georgia Rang Tang and the Shoo-Fly Swing are kept alive at this weekly event.

Practice your Dirty Dancing lifts in the manmade lake where Johnny Castle himself did.

The U.S. Supreme Court's secret Cold War relocation facility in the mountains of North Carolina.

This bridge is haunted by the ghost of a distraught mother.

This North Carolina museum is keeping the pinball craze alive, with a little Space Invaders on the side.

North Carolina's finest examples of Native American pictographs have survived for 5,000 years.

This too-low North Carolina railroad trestle is still a notorious big rig executioner.