One of the most unique parks in the National Park Service is located one and a half miles north of the White House in the middle of the northwest quadrant of Washington, DC. Meridian Hill Park is a 12-acre neoclassical park reminiscent of an Italian villa garden. Prior to becoming a national park, the area had been part of an estate called Meridian Hill; home to Columbian College, precursor to George Washington University; a Civil War encampment; a seminary; and the site of nature poet Joaquin Miller s cabin. In October 1936, Meridian Hill Park officially opened. It had taken 26 years from 1910 to 1936 to complete and cost more than $1 million to construct. When the park opened, it contained five statues and memorials (today, there are four), including one for a US president; a 13-basin water cascade created on the 75-foot natural slope; and an elaborate structure that used a newly perfected construction medium called architectural concrete. Meridian Hill Park is of cultural and historical significance and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and as a National Historic Landmark."

One of the most unique parks in the National Park Service is located one and a half miles north of the White House in the middle of the northwest quadrant of Washington, DC. Meridian Hill Park is a 12-acre neoclassical park reminiscent of an Italian villa garden. Prior to becoming a national park, the area had been part of an estate called Meridian Hill; home to Columbian College, precursor to George Washington University; a Civil War encampment; a seminary; and the site of nature poet Joaquin Miller's cabin. In October 1936, Meridian Hill Park officially opened. It had taken 26 years--from 1910 to 1936--to complete and cost more than $1 million to construct. When the park opened, it contained five statues and memorials (today, there are four), including one for a US president; a 13-basin water cascade created on the 75-foot natural slope; and an elaborate structure that used a newly perfected construction medium called architectural concrete. Meridian Hill Park is of cultural and historical significance and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and as a National Historic Landmark.

In the nineteenth century, Commodore David Porter built his mansion on a prominent hill sitting directly north of the White House, and the rest of Meridian Hill's history is indelibly tied to the fabric of Washington. John Quincy Adams once resided in Porter's mansion. Union troops used the estate and its lands during the Civil War. Later, part of the old estate was famously developed by Mary Henderson into a noted group of embassy mansions, and the extraordinary Meridian Hill Park was created. The rest of the land became a diverse, thriving residential neighborhood. Join local author Stephen McKevitt as he chronicles the fascinating story of this interesting urban locale in the nation's capital.

Lipstick Brigade tells the dynamic, inspiring-and until now, untold-story of Washington's World War II "Government Girls," recruited from every corner of the nation to staff the offices of America's central command post. Sometimes called white-collar Rosie the Riveters, this clerical corps over 100,000 strong became federal stenographers, typists, code breakers, analysts, and spies. Filled with firsthand accounts and extensive primary research, Lipstick Brigade brings World War II-era Washington to life. Despite its romanticized image, the nation's wartime capital was gritty, carnal, frustrating, and sometimes deadly. From Sister Carrie to Carrie Bradshaw, the adventures of young, single women working in the big city have captured the public's imagination. Lipstick Brigade explores the captivating, surprising, and often moving stories of how these real-life adventurers confronted the challenges of war and transformed the usually sedate capital into a rollicking boomtown.

Everyone knows that Washington, D.C. is a city of secrets. There are secrets in the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court. There are secret files in the Pentagon, the FBI, CIA, NSA, and a veritable alphabet soup of federal agencies. Yet the greatest secrets in the nation's capital are not locked in a vault or under 24-hour guard. Washington's greatest secrets are hidden in plain sight. They are the secrets of Ancient Egypt and of its influence on the development of the United States and its capital city. America's founding fathers were profoundly influenced by the ancient Egyptians. Egypt is on the Potomac, but you will never know it it you do not know what to look for. The hidden history of Washingtonc D.C. and its relationship to ancient Egypt are revealed in the pages of this book.