What to do and see in District of Columbia, District of Columbia: The Best Things to do

We belong to you. The National Gallery of Art—the nation’s museum—preserves, collects, exhibits, & fosters understanding of works of art.

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Tickets are only needed from March 1 to August 31 to visit the Museum's Permanent Exhibition, which tells the history of the Holocaust from 1933 to 1945. Exhibitions Include: Permanent Exhibition: The Holocaust Spanning three floors, the self-guided Permanent Exhibition presents a narrative history of the Holocaust and features historical artifacts, photographs, and film footage. Personal objects and the concluding eyewitness testimonies highlight the stories of individuals. Recommended for ages 11 or older. The Portal: A Real-Time Conversation with People Forced to Flee Persecution The Shared Studios Portal allows you to have a face-to-face conversation with someone in another part of the world-as if you are standing in the same room. Through this installation, visitors will be able to converse in real time with displaced persons or refugees in Iraq, Jordan, and Germany Remember the Children: Daniel's Story Representing the experiences of many Jewish children during the Nazi era, "Daniel" narrates through his diary the history of the Holocaust in ways that children can understand. Recreated environments present life in a middle-class German home, in a Jewish ghetto in occupied Poland, and finally at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The exhibition is explicit without being graphic. Recommended for ages 8 or older. Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration & Complicity in the Holocaust Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration & Complicity in the Holocaust addresses one of the central questions about the Holocaust: How was it possible? The central role of Hitler and other Nazi Party leaders is indisputable. Less well understood is these perpetrators' dependence on countless others for the execution of Nazi racial policies. Within Nazi Germany and across German-dominated Europe, circles of collaboration and complicity rippled throughout governments and societies wherever victims of persecution and mass murder lived.

Though the Library of Congress doesn't own every book ever published, it sure has most of them, with 532 miles of shelves and 115 million items, with 7,000 added each working day.

Emotionally stirring memorial pays tribute to the men and women who served in one of America's most controversial wars.

Established in 1910 and located on the National Mall, this prestigious museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution, holds the world's most extensive collection of natural history specimens and human artifacts including the remains of dinosaurs and tools used by early man.

Open area of gardens, fountains, trees and monuments stretching nearly two miles between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial.

Note to visitors: Starting Oct 7, 2019, please enter through the Jefferson Drive entrance (National Mall side). The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum maintains the largest collection of historic air and spacecraft in the world.

The Capitol is among the most architecturally impressive and symbolically important buildings in the world. The Senate and the House of Representatives have met here for more than two centuries. Begun in 1793, the Capitol has been built, burnt, rebuilt, extended, and restored; today, it stands as a monument not only to its builders but also to the American people and their government.