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Ghosts of Scary DC Blog 12 The Flying Ghost of the Potomac River © 2018 by Dr. Philip Ernest Schoenberg, Ghost with a Blog #ghosts Samuel Pierpont Langley, the Secretary of the Smithsonian, backed by the US government with $50,000 and his own Smithsonian Institution granting him $20,000, attempted to make the first working piloted heavier-than-aircraft. His models flew, but his two attempts at piloted flight were not successful. Langley began experimenting with rubber-band powered models and gliders in 1887. His first success came on May 6, 1896 when his Number 5 unpiloted model flew half a mile after a catapult launch from a boat on the Potomac River. Aviation historians consider this to be the world’s first sustained flight by a powered heavier-than-air craft. He designed a powerful engine, 50 hp, compared to the 12 hp of the Wright…

On an isolates stretch of road on foggy, summer nights of the full moon, people on a nightly stroll see an unusual sight.  They see a tall man with a top hat and a pedestrian with a beard bowing toward one another and perhaps even engaging in conversation.  As they get closer, they disappear into…

The Tomb (two levels below the Capitol Rotunda) was an original feature of the Capitol, planned as a resting place for George Washington and members of his family. The Washington family politely declined the offer because they felt it would be too much of a tourist attraction. Ironically their chosen resting place of Mt. Vernon has…

The National Theatre is the oldest continuing, operating theatear in the country.  The National Theatre (1321 Pennsylvania Avenue NW) opened at its current location on December 7, 1835, although the old building was torn down and replaced with the current structure in 1923. It  has experienced three fires and several re-buildings. Nonetheless, some claim the…

President Theodore Roosevelt. In his Autobiography he remarked, “When our children were little, we were for several winters in Washington, and each Sunday afternoon the whole family spent in Rock Creek Park, which was then very real country indeed.”  As an advocate of the “Strenuous Life,” he was always a man in motion who involved…

Soldiers from wars long past may haunt the capitol, marching time from time in dead of night. Witnesses have seen the ghost of an American Revolutionary War solder, in full uniform, passes by the empty Washington crypt, meant to entomb George Washington but he preferred to be buried in Mount Vernon. Also, the specter of…

In 1897, the Library of Congress was blessed with its own building, now known as the Jefferson Building, because his sale of books to the Library of Congress after the War of 1812 had been nucleus of Library’s collection.  Not only was the building designed to be as fireproof as possible, but it was the…

The intersection of 7th Street NW and H Street NW is the heart of D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood today, but prior to the 1930s it was populated primarily by German immigrants. Before the American Civil War, 7th Street NW was the city’s primary commercial district, the street lined with three-story Federal-style townhouses with shops on the…

Fala, was an early Christmas gift to Franklin D. Roosevelt from his favorite cousin, Margaret Suckley, proved to be the perfect political animal. He shook people’s hands instead of taking a bite out of them or doing his business in inappropriate places unlike so many other doges that the Roosevelts had. One had even taken…

Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, moved here in 1921 after he finished his presidency. He had high hopes of starting a law practice and continuing scholarly activities but he never recovered from his last stroke before he died in 1924. Woodrow Wilson had been in denial about his stroke and had…

The Library of Congress found a friend in Congress when the legislative body passed the Copyright Act of 1870. This single measure made the Library of Congress the central copyright authority for the entire country. Those who wanted to get a copyright had to deposit two copies of their work instead of the local federal…

Not all Capitol hauntings are related to people who worked there in the hallowed halls of Congress’s home. One haunting has its beginnings in the city’s rodent problem in the nineteenth century. This is perhaps unsurprising for a city built near so many rivers. What were the politicians to do, but use the universal solution…