Learn the story of Herbert Copeland, the last person to be executed by hanging in the District. Copeland was a cop killer who had murdered three policemen in cold blood in 1918. He was captured and eventually hanged in 1925, leaving behind a confession with details of his escape and other unsolved murders.

We are a great nation and Americans in the 1880s were proud of their rapidly growing and dominant country. But how can you truly be a great nation without a national zoo to show off all the wonderful creatures that roam your lands, as well as those of foreign lands? Not only that, how will you help preserve the species that were being decimated by the rapid westward expansion and industrial progress? A group of school children viewing the first bison at the National Zoological Park in 1899. Photograph...