Harry Hoxsey, a name unrecognizable to many, was a man who peddled 'cancer cures,' though these 'cures' were unproven and dangerous. His actions resulted in government prosecution. https://t.co/dHkORFdyue Harry Hoxsey, a name unrecognizable to many, was a man who peddled 'ca…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 6, 2022
This day in history, former President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law, thanks in part to the work of activists involved in Freedom Summer. https://t.co/sLIatlQYFt This day in history, former President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Righ…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 6, 2022
Proper funding for cancer research in the early 20th century was few and far between, but lifelong politician Matthew Mansfield Neely fought to get research expanded. Though he eventually passed away from cancer, his legacy remains. https://t.co/3cC6VzDXt1 Proper funding for…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 6, 2022
F St NW facing west from the front steps of the Patent Office Building, circa 1889. The Treasury Dept is at the end of the street. Many stores with sidewalk-wide awnings can be seen--virtually all of them sprang up in the 1880s. Note also the horse-drawn streetcars. …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 6, 2022
The Manhattan Project, known for developing the nuclear bomb, and most often associated with New Mexico, had connections to Washington D.C. Colonel Leslie Groves led the project, and he chose a small office in D.C. as his base. https://t.co/OGWjb0qRch The Manhattan Project, …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 6, 2022
Today in History - August 6 https://t.co/ZIH1y3sf7k On August 6, 1890, baseball great Cy Young pitched his first professional game, leading the Cleveland Spiders past the Chicago Colts. Continue reading. Click here to search Today in History for other historic moments.
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 6, 2022
Jazz is an important part of the American musical lexicon, and radio station Felix Grant knew that. That's why, in 1979 when WMAL tried to shorten his air time, the letters of outcry rolled in. https://t.co/fRKF2iYtlv Jazz is an important part of the American musical lexicon…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 5, 2022
Curiosity's Dusty Selfie via NASA https://t.co/pIv5tzE3Oo https://t.co/Dt0YU2VLfs
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 5, 2022
As we slowly learn to live with Covid-19, we look back at another illness that ravaged DC at the turn of the 20th century, that of Typhoid. The major cause of this sickness in the district was the state of decay of the city’s drinking water. https://t.co/QZJ29Q2FD4 As we slo…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 5, 2022
Urban renewal is a constant debate in D.C. and has been for a long time. Southwest D.C.'s post-WWII brush with it led to a neighborhood completely changed, not necessarily for the better. https://t.co/MrPtVsLMfB Urban renewal is a constant debate in D.C. and has been for a l…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 5, 2022
In case you missed it, our latest “Worlds Revealed” blogpost called “Mapping the Gangs of Chicago,” which highlights the mapping of Chicago’s troubled past during prohibition is online. Read more: https://t.co/PS1jhqrTeu In case you missed it, our latest “Worlds Revealed” blog…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 5, 2022
The Beatles are one of the most well known bands of all time, but their final performance in D.C. in 1966 was mired in controversy and demonstrative of the changing times. https://t.co/ip4UcUB56F The Beatles are one of the most well known bands of all time, but their final p…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 5, 2022
Today in History - August 5 https://t.co/uvn8bqzDnP On August 5, 1775, the Spanish ship, San Carlos, commanded by Juan Manuel de Ayala, entered what would soon be called San Francisco Bay. Continue reading. On August 5, 1858, Julia Archibald Holmes became the first woman on…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 5, 2022
Here are five standout pieces we read this week. You can always visit our editors’ picks or our Twitter feed to see what other recommendations you may have missed.
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Janelle Nanos | The Boston Globe Magazine | July 28th, 2022 | 11,329 words
I would be remiss if I didn’t start by noting that Janelle Nanos’s story contains graphic details of childhood sexual abuse — some readers may want to proceed with caution, or not at all. Should you choose to click through, you will find a feat of narrative journalism, as propulsive as it is compassionate. As an adult, Kate Price, an authority on child sex trafficking, began to remember being abused by her father, grandfather, and other men. But no one believed her. Even she wasn’t sure she could trust her memories. So, in collaboration with Nanos over roughly a decade, Price went looking for evidence of what her brain told her had happened. I won’t reveal what they found; readers should experience it in the context of Nanos’s excellent prose. I’ll just say that the piece took my breath away. Twice. —SD
Paloma Pacheo | Maisonneuve | June 24th, 2022 | 5,764 words
Although no wine connoisseur, I have been to the Okanagan Valley — a wine region in British Columbia — several times. I enjoy sitting on a vineyard patio, cockily swirling a big glass round and round while I pretend to detect oaky notes or hints of grass (all I smell is the reassuring whiff of alcohol.) The last time I was there, the air was also sadly filled with the smell of smoke as wildfires burned across the region. Although I feared for properties in the area, it never crossed my mind to consider the wine itself; but for those who can taste the difference between a cab sav and a merlot, the tinge of smoke is a growing concern. In this essay, Paloma Pacheco persuades several Okanagan winemakers to discuss the threat of “smoke taint” — still quite a taboo topic outside the industry. The taint occurs when compounds in woodsmoke bind to sugars in a ripening grape’s skin, and with wildfires growing in intensity each year, the risk of wine tasting, in Pacheco’s words, “like you’re licking the bottom of an ashtray,” has grown in many wine regions. Wine is a low priority in the many challenges of a burning world, but Pacheco points out that “the solutions that winemakers and growers have adopted represent a form of resilience many of us can learn from.” A riveting read. —CW
Radley Balko | Nashville Scene | July 28th, 2022 | 8,219 words
Nashville isn’t the only American city to have seen a recent spike in both population and gentrification; it’s also not the only city to have a byzantine set of zoning codes governing what can and can’t happen on a person’s property. But when you put those two things together, as Radley Balko explores in this investigation, you get a perfect storm of bureaucracy-perpetuated inequity. Real-estate developers and property-value-minded neighbors anonymously call the Metro Codes Department on longtime residents, many of whom are older, Black, and poor — and almost none of whom (Balko included) can fight the compounding deluge of citations. That’s not even considering the bloated city council that’s uniquely susceptible to lobbying from housing associations, and thus not exactly disposed to address this syndrome at the root. Yet, in this case, change may be in the offing: Nashville Scene has already published a follow-up story detailing the ensuing uproar, which includes mayoral pledges and a whole lot of neighborly strife. Every time a hedge fund guts a local paper or alt-weekly, it jeopardizes the future for pieces like this. —PR
Claire McNear| The Ringer | July 29th, 2022 | 3,000 words
I remember laboring over sociology essays on classic moral panics such as the Mods and Rockers (two British youth subcultures, supposedly rather fond of beating each other up.) However, I never learned about parents getting flustered over colorful jelly bracelets. Luckily, Claire McNear is here to fill me in with this captivating essay on why seemingly innocuous bands became labeled as sex bracelets and banned from schools across the U.S. McNear explains, in far more entertaining terms than any of my turgid tomes on the topic, how the fear behind a moral panic is a “perception problem.” In this case, people assuming “the generation or generations behind them are more salacious.” There is little evidence that middle schoolers in the early 2000s were actually busy snapping bracelets to indicate sex acts — it was all far more Brady Bunch than the grown-ups would ever have suspected. —CW
Tad Friend | The New Yorker | Aug 1st, 2022 | 9,497 words
Where do I even begin to endorse Tad Friend’s safari into the world of modern-day door-to-door salespeople? First, I guess, would be the disclaimer that this sort of subculture piece is catnip for me. I’m a sucker for industry argot, from “bageling” to “tie-downs” to the BOLT system. I’m a sucker for play-by-play annotations, as when Friend details the conversations that Taggart — would-be king of the “knockers” — has with the folks unlucky enough to answer the door and expose themselves to his white-toothed psychological siege. I’m a sucker for anything that plumbs the depths of alpha-bro “performance” thinking, foreign as it is to my character. But that’s only the starting point. What Friend delivers here is a portrait of the want that plagues so many of us, a want for success that’s really a want for redemption. It fuels the cold calls, the seminars, the mind games. “Failure is abhorrent because it can induce a contagious loss of faith in the whole enterprise,” he writes. That was likely the case in the days of Fuller brushes and vacuum cleaners, and it’s certainly the case today, with the knockers peddling home-security systems and high-commission solar panels. Somehow as devastating as it is entertaining. —PR
Quote of the Day: "Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way." - Baltasar Gracian
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 5, 2022
Bert Shepard was unsure if he would ever play baseball again after losing part of his right leg during WWII, but his determination and love for the sport led him to play for the Washington Senators, becoming their "one-legged war hero." https://t.co/Zi75calNHx Bert Shepard w…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 4, 2022
Happy birthday to the late Louis Armstrong, who graced D.C.'s Griffith Stadium in 1942 to participate in a friendly music battle with fellow musician Charlie Barnet. https://t.co/34wu2MPkK8 Happy birthday to the late Louis Armstrong, who graced D.C.'s Griffith Stadium in 194…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 4, 2022
Ice Stars via NASA https://t.co/jTNJZUF15j https://t.co/04QhTrnneE
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 4, 2022
French cartographer Jaillot made this 1696 map of the Holy Land in Biblical times. Hand-colored boundaries show areas inhabited by 12 tribes of Israel. See the key and cartouche, framed by Adam and Eve and Moses and Aaron respectively: https://t.co/7IHKRGXXWX …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 4, 2022
Ever had trouble finding a specific address in a Sanborn map? Check out our new GIS tool, the Sanborn Atlas Volume Finder! It can pinpoint the correct volume for locations within larger cities. L.A. and Detroit now available with more to come! Link: https://t.co/soCrKfIiUl …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 4, 2022
What do Jodie Foster and Ronald Reagan have in common? Both were victims of John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate then President Reagan to show Foster how devoted he was to her, a horrifying action that landed him in jail. https://t.co/qokqu8fmGY What do Jodie Fost…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 4, 2022
Things don't always go to plan, which people in the southwest section of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival found out in 1976 when two calves escaped. Though one was captured quickly, the other gave workers a run for their money. https://t.co/bB0Fty7j4f Things don't always go…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 4, 2022
Today in History - August 4 https://t.co/qj1bBLiPte On August 4, 1753, George Washington became a Master Mason, the highest rank in the Fraternity of Freemasonry. Continue reading. Click here to search Today in History for other historic moments.
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 4, 2022
You might have wandered about Statuary Hall and seen the statues representing all fifty states and the District, but did you know that the District's statue of Frederick Douglass was not allowed to stand in that hall until 2013? https://t.co/sHnP78zc2w You might have wandere…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 3, 2022
Wildflowers in Bloom at Kennedy Space Center via NASA https://t.co/KxHfTakE9f https://t.co/xvhJ3QWcXd
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 3, 2022
The American War Mothers, founded in 1917, became a force for advocacy and support of veterans. An early HQ was at 1527 New Hampshire Ave NW, but in 1956 the organization acquired this house at 2615 Woodley Place NW as its new national HQ. https://t.co/phvhbpjK8R The American …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 3, 2022
On August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge officially became President of the United States after Warren G. Harding passed away. Due to the sudden change, the Willard Hotel temporarily served as the White House while the actual White House was being prepared. https://t.co/xbi3icU15L …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 3, 2022
Edward Feiner, first chief architect for the U.S. government, dies at 75 https://t.co/AePGCTj39K Edward Feiner, first chief architect for the U.S. government, dies at 75 https://t.co/AePGCTj39K — Streets of Washington (@StreetsOfDC) Aug 3, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 3, 2022
Today in History - August 3 https://t.co/ZkAjNrohdt On August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus set out on his first voyage to what came to be known as the New World. Continue reading, Calvin Coolidge took the presidential oath of office on August 3, 1923, after the unexpecte…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 3, 2022
You may heard of Rin Tin Tin and Toto, but have you heard of Laddie Boy? Laddie Boy was former president Warren G. Harding's beloved dog and the first ever pet to hold the title of First Dog. https://t.co/yVePqG4Zeo You may heard of Rin Tin Tin and Toto, but have you heard o…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 2, 2022
Happy birthday to the late Pierre L'Enfant, the man we can thank for the sometimes confusing, mostly lovely design of the District of Columbia. But did you know that although he died in 1825, he received a second burial in the early 1900s? https://t.co/h6eXlbXjSk Happy birth…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 2, 2022
While National Treasure captured minds with its twists and turns in a familiar setting, the journey of the Declaration of Independence going from Philadelphia to its future home in the National Archives is a wild ride worthy of a movie too. https://t.co/P0wCv2EpIa While Nati…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 2, 2022
This 16th-century bird's-eye view is one of the earliest maps of Algiers. Created by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg for their 6-volume “Civitates orbis terrarium.” Zoom here to see the fortification around the city: https://t.co/lkQ74ikXap https://t.co/ERTDRAb64g This 16th-c…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 2, 2022
George F. Timms (1843-1921) was born in nearby Virginia and opened his prominent clothing store at 7th and D Streets NW, near the Center Market, shortly after the Civil War. He stayed in business through the 1880s. In 1902 he moved to Utah to be a prospector. …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 2, 2022
The 1920s is known for many things, but a lesser known fact was the way the Klu Klux Klan left their mark on the radio scene in Washington D.C. For a short period of time before their membership dropped, their bigoted thoughts surfed the airwaves. https://t.co/Kp8CCxO6uK The…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 2, 2022
Today in History - August 2 https://t.co/4uebJkCGMO Novelist, essayist, and playwright James Baldwin was born in August 2, 1924, in New York City. Continue reading. Click here to search Today in History for other historic moments.
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 2, 2022
Quote of the Day: "If you count all your assets you always show a profit." - Wilson Mizner
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 2, 2022
This map of Jamaica from the 1680s lists all sorts of island features and locations. Have a look: https://t.co/un05G4XeOg https://t.co/sWH3R059XH This map of Jamaica from the 1680s lists all sorts of island features and locations. Have a look: https://t.co/un05G4XeOg …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 1, 2022
Did you know that the Old Ebbitt Grill almost closed down for good in 1970? It was rescued by Stuart Davidson and John Laytham, owners of Clyde's in Georgetown, who originally just wanted the beer stein collection but came away with a new restaurant. https://t.co/qVbsKpo0MN …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 1, 2022
Go-Go music is D.C.'s pride and joy and the band Rare Essence exemplifies that up and downs of the genre, as well as its importance to D.C. as a whole. https://t.co/9IsJYbDRUe Go-Go music is D.C.'s pride and joy and the band Rare Essence exemplifies that up and downs of the …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 1, 2022
Happy #mapmonstermonday. Check out all of the sea monsters on this 1572 second ed. Carta marina by Olaus Magnus. It is considered is one of the earliest accurate depictions of the Scandinavian peninsula. Which monster is your favorite: https://t.co/tukA8lem00 …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 1, 2022
NASA Pays Tribute to Nichelle Nichols via NASA https://t.co/tSLbpV7mDm https://t.co/EMgtnNGzXV
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 1, 2022
Today in History - August 1 https://t.co/qpBP1tYtKa After its first bid for statehood was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, Colorado entered the Union on August 1, 1876. Continue reading. Click here to search Today in History for other historic moments.
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 1, 2022
Today is World Ranger Day! To honor the men and women who protect, preserve, and educate the public about our national parks, we look back at the creation of a NPS park. No, not the National Mall, but rather, the GW Parkway. https://t.co/NUvm4oymJx Today is World Ranger Day!…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Aug 1, 2022
Kate Chase was the hostess for her father, Salmon P. Chase, while he served as the Secretary of the Treasury. Kate was the second most influential woman in 1860s DC, right behind Mary Todd Lincoln. But Mary didn’t like Kate as Mary felt Kate outshined her. …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 31, 2022
This spring the DC History Center launched its first call for two research fellows focusing on Black Washington and/or LGBTQ+ DC. We are thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2022-2023 fellowships, Tim Kumfer and Kristy Li Puma! Read more 👉 https://t.co/Jv6hT6r4sQ …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 31, 2022
The tale of Horatio Greenough’s 1840 statue of George Washington was quite storied. The 12-ton statue was too heavy to be placed in the Capitol rotunda. It was ultimately placed outside where the public took a disliking to it as it was too scandalous. https://t.co/S0EsPHB3Tk …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 31, 2022
Before 1897, the #LibraryofCongress was known as the Congressional Libraries and were located inside the Capitol. When the LOC’s new building was erected a ¼ mile away, a plan was devised to get books easily from the Capitol and to the LOC. https://t.co/cSbIw6vlw8 Before 189…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 31, 2022
David “Duke” Zeibert (1910–1997) opened Duke Zeibert's in 1950 in the LaSalle Building on the southwest corner of Connecticut Ave and L St NW. It became a Washington institution, in no small part due to Duke's commanding personality. https://t.co/86evQxM2yQ David “Duke” Zeiber…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 31, 2022
Today in History - July 31 https://t.co/wt6zN21Qjt On July 31, 1816, George H. Thomas was born in Southampton County, Virginia. Continue reading. Patrick Francis Healy, SJ, was inaugurated as president of Georgetown University on July 31, 1874. Continue reading. Click he…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 31, 2022