1. The good people of DC consume more wine per person than any state in the country. Who knew our nation’s capital was also a wino’s paradise?
2. The city reportedly collects around $92 million in parking tickets a year. That might explain why the meter maids seem to stand guard on every corner.
3. You may notice license plates in DC have the phrase “Taxation Without Representation” on them. That’s because, although residents pay taxes, they don’t have a voting representative in Congress.
4. In DC you can be arrested for posting a notice in public that calls another person a “coward” for refusing to accept a challenge to duel.
5. Colchester Overpass, also known as Bunny Man Bridge, is a popular spot for paranormal enthusiasts because of its association to the Bunny Man–a guy who dressed in a bunny suit and attacked people with an axe. Was he real? Some police records indicate so.
5. Those cherry blossoms trees you can see all throughout the city? They probably wouldn’t look so nice with a bunch of bugs eating away at them. That’s what happened to the first shipment sent from Japan back in 1910. They were burnt on the spot and the next shipment didn’t arrive until two years later.
6. The term 007 was supposedly derived from 20007, the home zip code of many Washington, DC agents. At least that’s one popular theory.
7. The early colonists were a little lazy when developing the alphabet here, so you’ll notice that even though the streets are designed as a grid of letters and numbers, “J Street” does not exist. It’s seriously because they hadn’t made a “J” yet.
8. Everybody knows that President Obama loves Ben’s Chili Bowl, but most don’t know that he and comedian Bill Cosby are the only two people allowed to eat there for free. The Prez always insists on paying, but he could skip out on the check if he wanted to.
9. There’s a vending machine in the Capitol Building that serves up TV dinners.
10. The official song of DC was written by a former Mouseketeer. Don’t panic–it wasn’t Britney Spears. It was written back in 1951.
11. The first official White House Christmas Tree was decorated by Benjamin Harrison and his family.
12. D.C. is known for its abundance of beautiful parks, but it’s no secret the drivers are a little frustrated with the way they’re laid out. That was on purpose. The idea was that if enemies invaded from the water, they would have a harder time moving units into the city if the parks blocked their routes.
11. Both Helen Keller and Woodrow Wilson are buried at the National Cathedral on Mass. Ave.
13. The Washington Monument used to be a popular spot for people to commit suicide by jumping to their deaths. It can’t happen now, though, since safety bars and gates were installed when it seemed to be getting out of hand.
14. There are paw prints on the floor of the hallway outside of the Old Supreme Court Chamber. The legend is that they belong to the Demon Cat that haunts the Capitol building. It was actually from cats that they brought in during construction to solve a rat problem.
15. The building of the Capitol was originally intended to be a contest in which the best design would be used and the designer would get a $500 reward. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson weren’t impressed with any of the submissions, so they ended up taking bids for the job and a Scottish doctor by the name of William Thornton won out.
16. The Capitol building actually serves as the dividing center for all of the quadrants in the city.
17. A lot of people believe that the height restriction on buildings was set to prevent blocking the views of the Capitol and the Washington Monument. Not true. Buildings cannot be twenty feet taller than the width of the street that it faces (except on Pennsylvania Ave.). It’s mostly due to outdated safety concerns, and to keep the city “light and airy” like Thomas Jefferson first envisioned it.
18. The National Mall is actually almost one and a half times larger than Vatican City.
19. There are stains on a staircase of the Capitol building that won’t come off. Some people say that it’s blood from a congressman who attacked a reporter and was shot for his troubles.
20. The annual Cherry Blossom Festival almost never happened. When Eliza Scidmore, the earliest female board member of the National Geographic Society, proposed the idea of bringing cherry blossoms to America everyone thought her idea was ridiculous. After testing the trees out on the property of botanist David Fairchild, she was able to convince First Lady Helen Taft that it was a fantastic idea. Taft had lived in Japan previously and was able to strike a deal with them to trade cherry blossoms for flowering dogwoods.
21. For every nineteen residents of DC there is one lawyer. That kind of puts a damper on the dating scene, doesn’t it? There’s also an estimated seventy-four lobbyists for each Senator.
22. The Library of Congress contains 535 miles of bookshelves
23. The debate over the Washington Redskins name goes back to the very beginning. The team was reportedly named after original Redskins coach and footballer William Henry “Lone Star” Dietz, who was revealed to have been falsely posing as Native American for most of his life. The Redskins’ owner, Dan Snyder, denied naming the team after Dietz after it came out about the man’s false identity.
24. You can thank DC for the Rickey–the gin and lime juice cocktail was created by bartender George A. Williamson at the infamous bar Shoomaker’s.
25. The Cowboys-Redskins rivalry began before The Dallas Cowboys were even a team. Texas oil tycoon Clint Murchison, Jr. attempted to buy the Redskins in 1958, but was outraged when the owner George Preston Marshall attempted to change the terms of their deal. Murchison, out of spite, bought the rights to the Redskins fight song to keep Marshall from using it. He then used the song to force Marshall to be the final vote in approving Murchison’s Dallas franchise.
26. There are reportedly more telephones than there are people in DC.
27. The Capitol building in DC has 365 steps–one to represent each day of the year.
28. It is unlawful for young boys to throw stones, at any time or place, for any reason, in the District of Columbia.
29. It costs the U.S. government 2.5 cents to produce a quarter–also, that money in your wallet? It’s made at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in DC and consists of cotton and linen, not paper.
30. Federal law in DC once allowed the government to quarantine people who came into contact with aliens. You get probed by aliens only to come home and get probed by your own people, man.
31. For every tree cut, two more have to be planted. It’s the law.
32. Most of the cherry trees originally donated by Japan had white blossoms. Today, they have pink.
33. All of the military horse statues in the city face towards the White House. If you’re ever lost, just look for a horse with a military general straddling its back. He’ll point your way.
34. The cell phone was invented in DC. In 1900 Reginald Fessenden became the first person to transmit his voice from one radio tower to another, thus making the first wireless telephone call.
35. Go-Go music was created in DC and has roots going back to the end of slavery.
36. The Arlington Ladies formed to make sure that every soldier buried in Arlington Cemetery had someone to attend his or her funeral.
37. DC is, or at least was, known as a Chocolate City. A Radio DJ in DC developed the term back in the 70s, mainly due to the fact that DC was one of the few cities with a predominantly African American population or political leadership.
38.The original name of The White House was actually the President’s Palace, up until 1901.
39. A contest was held in the 1980s to raise funds for construction on the National Cathedral’s west towers. The contestants were asked to submit gargoyle designs. The winner, Christopher Rader, submitted a portrait of his favorite villain: Darth Vader.
40. The National Mall is actually the third most visited destination in U.S., behind Times Square and the Las Vegas strip. If we added strippers on a giant Jumbotron at the mall entrance we’d be set.
41. The U.S. government says it's a crime to give false weather reports. Someone forget to tell every local news channel.
42. DC folks refer to a redneck or country person as a “Bama.”
43. Careful, men. You can serve up to ten years in prison in Washington DC if the court finds that you in some way cause your wife to become a prostitute.
44. Statistically, more Millennials move to DC than any other city (because it is just that awesome).
45. There’s a guy who walks around selling socks, usually out of a plastic bag full of brightly colored cotton, in Anacostia. Locals know him as “The Sock Man.”
46. And a man named Cedric Givens is widely known around the Penn Quarter for accidently bumping into pedestrians as he jogs by. They call him “Exercise Man.”
47. There’s a painting in the dome of the Capitol that shows President George Washington lounging with angels. I guess the painter thought pretty highly of our first president.
48. There’s a secret taco place in DC. It has no restaurant license on the walls nor a sign signifying its existence, but residents know exactly where to go to get served the best tacos in town–it’s in someone’s living room, and you typically need a reservation to get in. I’d tell you where it is, but it’s a secret.
