Offering commanding views of the California coastline, this restaurant was a hub for the artists and bohemians of Big Sur.

Centuries of crashing waves carved out this small hole in the rock, which lights up at certain parts of the year.

Beneath the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge is the “Gibraltar of the West Coast,” a fort built to protect the San Francisco Bay from naval attack.

One of the oldest producers of hand-folded fortune cookies still uses its original secret recipe.

Nestled in the heart of San Francisco’s bustling Financial District stands a unique homage to the Mayan and Beaux Arts.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

One of the dwarven trees dates back to 1625 and survived the Hiroshima bombing.

Home of the only civilian casualty at the Battle of Gettysburg.

A diorama of the Civil War, fought by cats.

This Polish cave has housed a dragon, a brothel, and an enduring legend.

The bank that helped fund the Mexican-American War and the purchase of Alaska met its downfall after helping Augusto Pinochet launder money.

The iconic D.C. restaurant where the Cuban Missile Crisis was negotiated, now a Walgreens.

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

An 18th-century townhouse that once hosted guests of the president.

This bridge over D.C.'s Rock Creek Park is sometimes called the "Buffalo Bridge" because of its four buffalo sculptures, which were cast from a single piece of bronze.

One of the last mosaic tile facades found in the city.

On the Fourth of July this area will transform into a Pompeii-like storm of falling embers and ash.

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.

A tribute to the pop culture icon overlooks this Washington D.C. intersection.

This fertility idol of questionable authenticity inspired an iconic Indiana Jones artifact.

A hidden passageway now marks the site of an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan that some say broke a 140-year-old curse.

A portal into the bricked up canal that runs through the heart of Washington D.C.