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WETA Washington's source for compelling television and inspiring classical music.
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10/14/2026

Nature kicks off its 45th season with an African safari special created in collaboration with Sesame Workshop. Join Elmo and the Sesame Street gang on a once-in-a-lifetime African safari adventure. After adopting an orphaned elephant online, Elmo, Abby and Nina travel to a Kenyan sanctuary to meet the young elephant alongside other iconic wildlife.

Nature: Sesame Street and the Great Elephant Adventure airs TONIGHT at 8pm on WETA PBS or stream on WETA+.

Today, it's common to see people wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Bob Marley's instantly recognizable likeness, and the ...
10/14/2026

Today, it's common to see people wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Bob Marley's instantly recognizable likeness, and the reggae classics that he recorded with the Wailers are so iconic that they're used in TV commercials.

But back on the afternoon of October 14, 1973, when the then-28-year-old singer and his band stepped out onto the stage at the U.S. Naval Academy's Halsey Field House, things were quite different.

In front of them sat somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 midshipmen in white shirts and ties, seated with their Homecoming dates on blue and gold blankets spread across the gym floor. The Washington Post's Tom Zito wrote that the midshipmen seemed more interested in nuzzling up to their dates than in the band. The reviewer for the Annapolis Evening Capital called the afternoon a disaster.

WETA's Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

The IRS gave the owners of the Old Ebbitt Grill ten days to settle a tax bill of $10,995.15. When the deadline passed in...
10/13/2026

The IRS gave the owners of the Old Ebbitt Grill ten days to settle a tax bill of $10,995.15. When the deadline passed in June 1970 with no payment, federal agents locked the doors of the restaurant at 1427 F Street NW and scheduled an auction.

The inventory drew a crowd. A Washington Post reporter counted a 200-year-old clock still running on its original wooden wheels, decanters dating to 1575, and one of the most valuable collections of b**r steins in the country. Stuart Davidson and John Laytham, owners of Clyde's in Georgetown, came for the steins and the mahogany bar.

Their bids were thrown out and the whole establishment went up for auction instead. On October 13, 1970, the Old Ebbitt reopened under new ownership.

WETA's Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

Felix Grant came to Washington radio after the war, to a station that filled its afternoons with Perry Como and Frank Si...
10/12/2026

Felix Grant came to Washington radio after the war, to a station that filled its afternoons with Perry Como and Frank Sinatra. The music he cared about was the jazz coming out of the African American clubs on U Street, and in 1945 WWDC gave him a nighttime slot to put it on the air.

Washington had no Black-owned radio station then, and segregation kept most white Washingtonians out of those U Street rooms. Grant was one of the few who went. He built his shows around Black musicians, and he refused to put racist stereotypes on the air.

His show “Album Sound” ran for decades on WMAL and became the longest continuously airing show of its kind in the country. Grant died 33 years ago today.

WETA’s Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

Calvin and Grace Coolidge filled the White House grounds with animals: dogs, cats, songbirds, a goose, a donkey. The pre...
10/11/2026

Calvin and Grace Coolidge filled the White House grounds with animals: dogs, cats, songbirds, a goose, a donkey. The press paid little attention until 1926, when the Coolidges adopted the raccoon that had been sent to them for Thanksgiving dinner, named her Rebecca, and gave her a collar and leash for Christmas.

Washington fell for Rebecca completely, and took it hard when she was sent to the Rock Creek Zoo. Friends and admirers responded by mailing the Coolidges replacements. The mayor of Johannesburg sent two lion cubs and a baby antelope.

Then came a hippopotamus. He was entered in the books as William Johnson Hippopotamus, called Billy, and he spent the next twenty-eight years as one of the most famous animals in the country.

WETA’s Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

10/11/2026

The final chapter approaches... 📖 Join us TONIGHT at 9pm for the stunning finale of Marble Hall Murders on WETA PBS and WETA+!

10/10/2026

A fancy party with all the key suspects? Sign them up! Get ready for the season finale of The Marlow Murder Club, this Sunday at 8pm on WETA PBS and WETA+.

Smokey Bear started out as a wartime message. The Forest Service built its fire prevention campaign in 1942 around sloga...
10/10/2026

Smokey Bear started out as a wartime message. The Forest Service built its fire prevention campaign in 1942 around slogans like “Forest Fires Aid the Enemy,” and 82 years ago today illustrator Albert Staehle delivered the first poster of the bear himself.

The living Smokey came later. In June 1950 an orphaned cub about three months old, found clinging to a charred pine tree after a New Mexico forest fire with third-degree burns on his paws and hide, flew to Washington on a game warden’s lap and moved into the National Zoo under the poster bear’s name.

He needed a second to win the city over. As the Evening Star put it, “It took Smokey, 10 pounds of bear cub, exactly 1 second today to become another Washington institution.”

WETA’s Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

10/09/2026

Three-time Grammy Award winner Olivia Rodrigo returns to the ACL stage with her fearless songwriting and arena-sized performance. The multi-platinum superstar performs highlights from her chart-topping album "you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love."

Tune in or stream TONIGHT at 9pm on WETA PBS and WETA+!

The indictment said Rebecca Fowler had been "led by the instigation of the Divell" to practice "certaine evil & dyabolic...
10/09/2026

The indictment said Rebecca Fowler had been "led by the instigation of the Divell" to practice "certaine evil & dyabolicall artes called witchcrafts." The accusation came from Francis Sandsbury, an indentured servant on her husband’s Calvert County plantation, who blamed her for an illness or injury.

The court charged that she had left his body "very much the worse, consumed, pined & lamed." It also held that she had done the same to "severall other persons" on "severall other dayes & times," none of whom were ever named.

Fowler pled not guilty and asked for a jury trial. No record survives of the evidence against her, but all twelve jurors convicted her, and 341 years ago today she was hanged — the only person ever executed for witchcraft in Maryland.

WETA’s Boundary Stones has the full story at the link in the comments below.

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