History
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Metro history: 'Midget runs 52 miles on a gallon of gas'
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Even 85 years ago, stellar fuel efficiency impressed our local drivers. A California driver rode into the capital in a baby automobile nearly as small as he was.
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Metro history: D.C. survived a Snowpocalypse in 1958, too
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WMATA and DDOT have begun unleashing their winter plans in the last week or so. In the spirit of that snowy transportation mess, let's look back to one of the District's most brutal winters — back in the winter of 1958.
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What motivated Chevrolet's gorgeous mid-century films on America
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International Cold War tensions influenced how Americans talked about their creativity, fashion, and transportation in these video productions from General Motors half a century ago.
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Metro history: How D.C. united urban workers with suburban jobs
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From 1984 to 1987, suburban job growth increased by 6% while the urban job growth within the District grew at a sluggish 2.2%. How did D.C. address this staggering difference? The city launched its Regional Jobs Initiative program in 1983 and gave unemployed D.C. workers a way to reach the suburbs if they found jobs out there.
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Metro history: The great bicycling renaissance of 1936
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The years of the Great Depression signaled the return of the bike in American culture. Why then and just how exactly did Hollywood play a role?
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Transit-lovers, here's some Metro earrings for under $20
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An Etsy user offers some Metro earrings crafted from tokens from the 1970s. Isn't it time you started your holiday shopping now?
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The Georgia Avenue/Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail opens soon
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The first signs for the Petworth trail have begun to be installed in the Petworth and Shaw neighborhoods. The pedestrian trail, which places a strong emphasis on the area's culture and history, will debut on October 15.
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Why Capital Bikeshare succeeded where SmartBike failed
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As Capital Bikeshare hits its one-year anniversary and celebrates its first million trips, let's look back at the District's first bkesharing service — SmartBike, which never had enough money, looked goofy, and according to one MBA professor, seemed designed to fail.
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What Russian literature tells us about D.C. transportation
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Don't dismiss the works of Bely, Dostoevsky, Gogol, and other Russian writers from half a world away. Their fiction, despite originating more than a century in the past, provides a dynamic lens for understanding the role and psychology of D.C.'s plazas and streets.
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The car took its first American life 112 years ago today
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Henry Bliss, a Manhattan real-estate salesman, became the first American to die by car more than a century ago on this day.
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64-year-old Indian motorcycle still rides strong on D.C. streets (video)
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The wild thing about some vehicles is that when built with the right parts, driven with the right care, and treated by the right hands, they'll just last and last. From an Indian motorbike on D.C. streets today to the classic American cars of Cuba, here's proof that our vehicles don't have to fall apart with age.
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Metro history: How the U.S. demonized drunk driving
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In 1968, the U.S. government released the Alcohol and Highway Safety Report, which collected and quantified the dangers of drunk driving for the first time. One of the report's key architects described how the U.S. Department of Transportation put the drunk driving report together and emphasized the facts of the drunk driving danger.
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Georgia Ave/Pleasant Plains Trail debuts October 15
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A new trail will link the Petworth and Howard Metro stations and places a special importance on the deep well of history that exists in these neighborhoods.
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What's the most famous bus in history?
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Is Ken Kesey's bus the most famous in history? Here's a few contenders that might give "Further" a run for its money.
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National History Day Contest at University of Maryland
More than 2,700 top history students from across the country are gathering at the University of Maryland for the National History Day Contest.
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TBD Picks: 'Swampoodle'
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The Uline Arena is Swampoodle's greatest asset, and biggest problem.
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Swampoodle: The strangest corridor of Washington, D.C.
CommentPlaywright Tom Swift recounts how he created a play about the long-lost neighborhood in D.C. that has hosted everyone from Irish immigrants to Nazis to the Beatles.
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The Best Museum You Never Heard Of: History of The Mansion on O
Thirty-one years ago, on Valentine’s Day of 1980, H.H. Leonards-Spero officially opened The Mansion on O.
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