The Origins of the March 4 Inauguration
Today, Inauguration Day falls on an exact day and time—January 20 at noon. Every four years, either the president or th...
Let's see what we have on
Significant Events
-
-
The Election of 1876
The morning of Monday, March 5, 1877 was cold and overcast as Americans anticipated the Inauguration of Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes...
-
Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Anti-lynching and the White House
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist, educator, and activist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.1 An...
-
"We Shall Overcome"
After the 1964 electoral landslide, President Lyndon Johnson’s political position changed considerably. With a larger liberal majority in both houses of...
-
The Octagon
On September 8, 1814, the Madisons moved into the Octagon, second in size only to the burned President's House, and the only...
-
A White House Worker Remembers President Kennedy's Assassination
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy had developed a bond with White House doorman Preston Bruce. The...
-
Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C.
Congress passed the Compensated Emancipation Act to end slavery in the District of Columbia and President Abraham Lincoln signed the...
-
Commodore Stephen Decatur: An Early American Naval War Hero
In President Theodore Roosevelt’s description of the capture of the HMS Macedonian by the USS United States in his 1882 bo...
-
Monuments to the American Revolution in Lafayette Park
In 1853, Clark Mills’ statue of President Andrew Jackson on horseback is in the center of Lafayette Park. The park’s four...
-
Mr. President, Can You Hear Us?
In the center of Washington, D.C, there is a seven-acre public park enclosed by H Street NW (north), Madison...
-
Seances in the Red Room
Death plagues us all: it is the only certainty in life and plays an integral role in the human experience....
-
Picketing the White House
In the second half of the nineteenth century Americans headed west to seek greater opportunities for themselves and their families....