Currituck Sound

Avenue of War

For many years before the war, Currituck Sound was a busy avenue of commerce sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Outer Banks. Vessels carried produce and goods between North Carolina and Virginia. After hostilities began, the sound ...

Armour and Swift Plaza

Designated as a state archeological landmark in 1987. This plaza honors the meatpacking industry, which helped make Fort Worth the livestock center of the southwest.

In 1901, both meatpackers signed identical contracts with the Fort Worth Stock Yards Company, giving the ...

Cushing’s Torpedo

Sinking of CSS Albemarle

CSS Albemarle, which had been built in a cornfield beside the Roanoke River in 1863-1864, helped drive the U.S. Army from Plymouth in April 1864 and defeated seven U.S. gunboats in May. The ironclad ram seemed invincible, ...

Night at the Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory

Latitude Observatory Park

Each night an observer would conduct a series of tasks as they made and recorded their observations; including rotating, aligning, and leveling the telescope, taking numerous readings of stars, weather and other factors.

A typical night at the observatory ...

The Chandler Wobble

Latitude Observatory Park

The Chandler Wobble is a small motion in the Earth's axis of rotation relative to the Earth's surface, which was discovered by American astronomer, Seth Carlo Chandler, Jr., in 1891. It is one of several wobbling motions that ...

The Meridian Mark Pier and Geodetic Survey Monuments

Latitude Observatory Park

The Gaithersburg International Latitude Observatory is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been declared a National Historic Landmark. The designation includes the Observatory, the Meridian Mark Pier, and the five monuments.

About 200 feet to ...

History and Purpose of the Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory

Latitude Observatory Park

The Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory was constructed in 1899 as one of the original four stations selected by the International Geodetic Association to carry out systematic observations to measure the variations in latitude cause by the Earth's wobble on ...

Stars and Stripes (1818)

There was considerable concern that the addition of a new stripe for each new state would create hopeless confusion. Therefore, Congress established the still current law that provided that after July 4, 1818 the flag would show thirteen stripes and ...

Belvedere Tower

Erected in 1869 as a lookout. It now houses the New York Meteorological Observatory which was founded in 1868 by Dr. Daniel Draper who was its director until his retirement in 1912. At which time the observatory came under the ...

Garard's Fort

Site of frontier refuge in Revolutionary War. Station of a small detachment of Virginia militia in 1977, when this area was claimed as part of Monongalia County, Virginia. Near here, on May 12, 1782, the wife and three children of ...