A fantastic array of trays and cables once whisked books over to the Capitol at 600 feet per minute.

Go take a picture with the inventor of the daguerreotype photographic process.

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

The first presidential bomb shelter was located in an old vault under the Treasury, connected to the White House via tunnel.

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

This sandwich shop has a century-old elevator behind a sheet of plexiglass.

The institution is sitting on a goldmine of 21,000 paints, varnishes, pigments, and primers preserved for posterity.

In the basement of the U.S. Capitol Building is a hidden storage room full of ornate floor tiles leftover from the 1850s.

Light bulbs, scrap wood, and tinfoil comprise this homemade throne of the gods.

An overlooked oasis of quiet on the grounds of Washington's monumental basilica.

Once the supplier for noteworthy projects like the National Cathedral, this old brickworks now lies abandoned.

A clone of a cloned tree that was so important it allegedly had its own guards.

The span is crooked and made from two older recycled bridges.

Seemingly unremarkable items like empty sushi trays, chef hats, and freshness stickers are being preserved so future generations can look back on this beloved cultural import.

Housing the National Women's Party since 1929, this historic house is now a monument to the fight for gender equality.

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

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.

Four bald cypress trees in Lafayette Square, across from the White House, mark the southern edge of a 100,000 year old cypress swamp.

A hoard of sky catalogs, astrophysical journals, even the works of Galileo and Copernicus.

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

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

You could be standing at the site of one of D.C.'s most fatal tragedies and not even know it.

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

These recently uncovered walls are all that's left of Washington, D.C's first defense contractor.