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.

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

A gorgeous mural outside a beloved D.C. restaurant pays homage to famous Black Americans.

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.

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

Also known as the Founding Church of Scientology.

This restaurant has been a haven for D.C.'s LGBTQ community since the 1950s.

The grand marble structure next to the White House is Andrew Carnegie's temple to Pan-American diplomacy.

A line of blue paint marks the route of the inaugural parade.

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

A derelict bit of infrastructure from the canal that once ran through D.C. is landlocked in the heart of the city.

An overlooked memorial honoring the local Washington residents who died in World War I.

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.

A muscular Art Deco monument represents the struggle between regulators and unbridled markets.

This seemingly out-of-place gas station by the Watergate hotel was once described as the most expensive gas station in the world.

While most wind tunnels test scale models, the "Cave of Winds" was large enough for actual airplanes.

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

The fountains of the U.S. Navy Memorial are annually salted with water from the Seven Seas as part of a nautical ritual.

When it comes to handsignals (and colonialism) rock always beats scissors.

A historic arena where the Beatles played their first concert in the U.S.

Before Nixon, "watergate" meant canals.

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