u/WETA_PBS

You work in 'civil service'.... sure. 

We're seeing some unexpected viewing trends this week on our app...folks across the DMV can't get enough of Signora Volpe. It's a British/Italian crime drama following a women who can't quite shake the investigative habits of a career with MI6, even in the pastoral Italian countryside.

If you're one of the seemingly few who haven't watched yet, get started here (and a note: you'll need PBS Passport to view).

The First Battle of Bull Run (or Battle of First Manassas as it became known in the South) was a rude awakening for those expecting a short and easy war, and a sobering reminder of the long and bloody slog that is so often the reality of war.

Read the full story here: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2024/07/21/first-battle-bull-run-and-its-foolhardy-picnickers

Photo: Library of Congress

One NASA official called NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center the heart of the mission — the one place that could not afford to have anything go wrong. What that room was like in the moments Apollo 11 slipped behind the Moon is worth reading in full: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2019/07/08/goddard-signals-apollo-11-success (Photo: NASA)

The House Un-American Activities Committee had summoned him for one purpose: to get the most famous Black man in America to publicly denounce another, the singer and activist Paul Robeson.

Read the full story here: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2016/04/08/jackie-robinson-and-house-un-american-activities-committee

Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

It all started in 1974, when musicians Bill Danoff and Margot Chapman stopped at Clyde’s in Georgetown for a meal. Read the full story here: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2019/09/30/skyrockets-flight-starland-vocal-band-launched-dc

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

That Benjamin Banneker, a free Black man, played a central role in designing the capital of a nation still practicing slavery is one of the more remarkable footnotes in Washington's founding. Link to the full story in the comments!

The participants, hailing from more than 80 Indigenous tribes, began their journey in February at Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. Thousands joined for parts of the journey, while a core two dozen demonstrators made the entire trek from sea to shining sea. The events concluded with a benefit concert at the D.C. Armory Starplex to raise funds for the protestors to go home. It featured Stevie Wonder, Marlon Brando and Muhammad Ali, among others.

Read the full story here: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2020/10/23/longest-walks-final-destination

Photo credit: Smithsonian

Inaugurating a new “Sunset Symphony” series, the NSO offered summertime performances on a 75 foot concert barge bobbing in the Potomac River.

Full story here: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2017/11/02/whatever-floats-yourorchestra

Photo credit: Library of Congress

A little over a month before Woodstock, thousands of young people packed into a Maryland horse track for two nights of music that deserved far more credit than it got.

Read about it here: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2017/07/21/laurel-pop-festival-marylands-woodstock-woodstock

Image source: www.e-rockworld.com

That first festival in 1967, with its polka bands, Cajun fiddlers, and Irish dancers performing on stages just two feet off the ground, set the template for decades of festivals that followed. Read the full story: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2016/11/15/remembering-first-smithsonian-folklife-festival

Photo: Smithsonian Institution Archives

This week in 1969, a tennis tournament opened at the public courts at 16th and Kennedy Streets NW in Rock Creek Park — not because of a wealthy sponsor or a country club, but because a rising young star insisted it belonged there. With Wimbledon underway this week, it's a fitting moment to look back at that star, and at one of Wimbledon's own most significant champions: Arthur Ashe.

Read more here: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2022/10/14/game-set-match-how-arthur-ashe-made-tennis-accessible-washington

Photo courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post

WETA’s Boundary Stones has the full story: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2016/07/08/alexandria-retrocession-1846

For those looking for PBS 4th of July coverage this weekend, this is the line-up for WETA PBS. See comments for 'where to watch' links!

Read more about the rough road to the Washington National Airport: https://boundarystones.weta.org/2018/05/03/bumpy-road-washington-national-airport