The Jefferson Pier on the National Mall.  A 170-year-old Japanese stone pagoda set among DC’s fabled cherry trees. A long-neglected fountain in the neighborhood once known as "Murder Bay." They’re among D.C.’s most unique, surprising and little-known monuments, memorials, and landmarks. Carolyn Muraskin, founder of DC Design Tours, knows their stories—and those of many more distinctive sites that visitors (and Washingtonians) often overlook.

Follow the invasion and retreat routes of the British Army in the War of 1812 as it successfully attacked Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area, resulting in the 1814 burning of the Capitol, Washington Navy Yard, and the White House, seeing relevant sites along the way. Walk the grounds of pivotal conflicts, including the historic land-sea Battle of St. Leonard Creek in Maryland. Maritime historian Donald Grady Shomette leads the tour.

Burt Bacharach composed for countless important artists during his storied 80-year career—which began in his teens­—but he and his lyricist Hal David reserved some of their most visionary work for the magnificent Dionne Warwick. Concert pianist and Bacharach and Warwick fan Rachel Franklin explores the power and depth of their creative relationship and the extraordinary songbook masterpieces these great artists have left us.

Auguste Rodin is considered the father of modern sculpture. Yet his works were deeply inspired by ancient classical and Renaissance art. Art historian Judy Scott Feldman explores how Rodin’s fascination, even obsession, with earlier figural traditions inspired his fusion of tradition and innovation in “The Kiss,” “The Gates of Hell,” and his powerful “Monument to Balzac.” (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

In 1943, the people of Denmark—led by King Christian X—dared to stand up for their Jewish citizens in one of the largest actions of collective resistance to aggression in the countries occupied by Nazi Germany. To keep the population of 8,200 Jews safe from arrest and deportation, the Danes hid, protected, and then smuggled most of them out of the country. Historian Ralph Nurnberger recounts this extraordinary act of courage on the part of a nation.

The Classic Maya city-states of Central America that flourished from the 3rd through the 9th centuries famously "collapsed" in the 9th and 10th. However, in the distinctive environment of the Yucatan Peninsula the Maya experienced a greater continuity, and a resurgent Post-Classic Maya culture arose that persisted uninterruptedly until the incursion of the Spanish in the 16th century. Cultural historian George Scheper examines its achievements and legacy.

The Borgias—a family synonymous with murder, rape, incest, and torture—have been immortalized by historians, authors, and a pair of dueling series on Showtime and Sky. But was it all sex, simony, and scandal? Art historian Elizabeth Lev examines their political aspirations, religious conflicts, fascinating artistic commissions—which, despite their extraordinary beauty, could not redeem the family's reputation—and the surprising epilogue to the clan’s inevitable downfall.

Long before royal exploits were splashed across the tabloids, England’s ruling clan played out their dramas on the national stage during the mid-to-late 15th century. The houses of Lancaster and York brawled through a series of family battles known as the Wars of the Roses, marked by enough drama, betrayals, and intrigue to fill a television series. Tudor and Renaissance scholar Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger looks at the conflict from the inside out, finding truth in the warning “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”