Almost Live! was a popular sketch comedy show that aired on Seattle’s NBC affiliate KING-TV from 1984 through 1999. Featuring local comics Ross Shafer and John Keister, the show poked fun a...
Temple de Hirsch, located in Seattle, was founded in 1899 on principles of reform Jewish thought. Today [2024] Temple de Hirsch Sinai is the largest Reform congregation in the Pacific Northwest and ce...
The community that would become Tenino, located in Thurston County, was founded in 1851 when Stephen Hodgden (1807-1882) filed a claim under the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850. In 1872 the Northern P...
Sidney Thal was one of Seattle's most beloved personalities. In 1948, he and his wife Berta Thal (1911-1996) purchased Fox's Gem Shop in downtown Seattle and transformed it into a leading retailer of ...
Helen Thayer was the first woman and oldest person to make a solo journey to the magnetic North Pole. She competed internationally as a world-class discus thrower, and in 1975 became the U.S. National...
The 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin were designed to demonstrate the superiority of German athletes, or in the words of the nation's chief propagandist, the Aryan "master race." The Nazi sports apparatus...
The year 1978 saw an unprecedented Washington primary campaign, one that pitted powerful pro-business incumbent State Senator August Mardesich against retired firefighter and pro-union newcomer Larry ...
A 1967 proposal to build a seven-story, 168-unit condominium on a 480-by-100-foot concrete platform to be constructed above the waters of Lake Union at the foot of East Roanoke Street in Seattle's Eas...
Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand (1916-2011) wrote this affectionate reminiscence about a sisterly altercation that took place in Seattle around 1928. Dorothea's older sister was Florence (Pfister) Burke...
The Dalles Lock and Dam (The Dalles Dam) is one of the 10 largest producers of hydroelectric power in the United States. Since its first generator went online in 1957, the dam has produced more than 9...
In May 1970, Seattle (along with much of the nation) was in the midst of weeks of protests that erupted when U.S. forces entered Cambodia on May 1. Protests escalated after National Guardsmen fired on...
In this reminiscence, Dorothea (Pfister) Nordstrand (1916-2011) relates the story of how she learned to drive in Seattle. The year was 1936, just 36 years after the first auto arrived in Seattle in 19...
In the early morning of January 9, 2009, a raging fire burned down The Dutchman rehearsal and recording studio in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood. The rundown industrial warehouse had been a vibrant cente...
Eric Johnston (1895-1961) was a Spokane businessman, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President of the Motion Picture Association of America, and an appointed official in the Truman and Eisenhowe...
This is a contemporary report on the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Washington's first world's fair. The exposition took place between June 1 and October 16, 1909, drawing more than three million pe...
On June 6, 1889, at about 2:45 p.m., what became known as the Great Seattle Fire started when a pot of glue burst into flames in a small cabinet shop on Front Street (today's 1st Avenue). The blaze qu...
On June 7, 1889, the sun rose over a stunned and devastated Seattle. The day before, a massive fire had ravaged the city's commercial core and its waterfront. Seattle had been booming, and over the pr...
Thanks to Seattle's damp and soggy weather, coffee has always been a cherished commodity. The city's first commercial roasting operations began producing fresh-roasted coffee more than 100 years ago, ...
This history of Harborview Medical Center and its predecessor hospitals by Josephine Ensign, who teaches health policy and health humanities at the University of Washington, is part of her larger work...
The first protean ideas for a Seattle domed stadium arose 12 years before the Kingdome's long-anticipated groundbreaking in 1972. Although many local sports fans and business leaders enthusiastically ...
In 1954 three Klineburger brothers -- Gene (b.1920), Bert (b.1926), and Chris (b.1927) -- bought the Jonas Brothers taxidermy studio in Seattle and by the early 1960s turned it into one of the largest...
The Mountaineers is a Western Washington-based organization that has had a major impact on outdoor recreation and wilderness preservation in the state. Started in Seattle in 1906 primarily as a mounta...
In the spring of 1859, after five years of study and survey, the U.S. War Department appropriated funds for the construction of a military wagon road between Fort Walla Walla in Washington Territory a...
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the federal government took unprecedented steps to support the visual arts, music, writing, and theater. Separate agencies dedicated to each were established ...