A regular summary of irregular news and notes from neighborhood blogs and email lists around the District.
Your Plus-Sized Pets: A member of the New Hill East email list learned her dog may be more than just big-boned: It could also have a bladder problem. She writes, “Does anyone need a pack of X-Large female doggie [...]
A regular summary of irregular news and notes from neighborhood blogs and email lists around the District.
Guerrilla Meat Sales: What’s better than half-price meat? Half-price meat delivered to your doorstep, of course. (That is, unless it happens to be a half-price meat scam, like the one City Paper uncovered in 2007.) A Prince of Petworth [...]
On July 28, 2005, a Republican congressman from south Texas quietly introduced a bill to rename D.C.’s 16th Street NW in honor of former president Ronald Reagan. Local uproar from D.C. residents and political leaders caused Rep. Henry Bonilla’s bill, H.R. 3525, to go nowhere.
The conservative out-of-towner’s plan was squashed by the overwhelmingly Democratic [...]
On June 22, 1972, Hurricane Agnes dumped torrential rainfall on the region as it swept up the eastern seaboard from the Carolinas to New York, flooding the Potomac River and Rock Creek in the District.
According to a report by the National Weather Service, the rare flooding event hit D.C., Virginia, and Maryland after Agnes dumped [...]
On June 22, 2009, the deadliest crash in Metrorail's history occurred when two Red Line trains collided near the Fort Totten station, killing nine people and injuring dozens more.
The accident, and a subsequent National Transportation Safety Board investigation, offered a harsh assessment of Metro’s lax safety maintenance. That Monday just before 5 p.m., at the [...]
On June 21, 2006, Anthony Williams took his final cannonball plunge into a D.C. swimming pool as mayor, his traditional way to open the city’s pools for the summer. Williams' two terms as the District's fourth Home Rule-era mayor began with a splash in 1999, when he made his inaugural dive. In 2006, Williams, who [...]
On June 20, 1874, the District’s territorial legislature met for the final time in what was called the “Feather-Duster Affair,” when members who lost their jobs stole desks, chairs, and whatever else they could get their hands on, including a feather-duster stashed down a legislator's pants.
Legislators of the racially integrated House of Delegates were still [...]
On June 12, 1958, a marriage consecrated in the District paved the way for one of the most important rulings on marriage, Loving v. Virginia, to be handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were married in D.C. and arrested upon their return home to Virginia's Caroline County. The grounds [...]
On May 24, 1861, Elmer E. Ellsworth, a 24-year-old Army colonel and close friend of President Abraham Lincoln, became the first Union officer killed during the Civil War. According to the 2003 spring/summer edition of Washington History magazine, Ellsworth, of the New York Zouaves Regiment, was shot and killed when he removed a Confederate flag [...]
On May 19, 1993, the D.C. government lost one of its early Home Rule-era leaders and most accomplished legislators. D.C. Council Chairman John A. Wilson was found dead in the basement laundry room of his Southwest home by his wife, Bonnie, and chauffeur. His death, ruled a suicide by the Metropolitan Police Department, sent shock [...]
