Carousel at Glen Echo Park

Glen Echo Park is an arts and cultural center in Glen Echo, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Located about 9 miles (14 km) northwest of the city's downtown area, the park's site was initially developed in 1891 as a National Chautauqua Assembly. Following the foreclosure and sale of the Chautauqua grounds in 1903, leisure facilities were developed there to serve the city's growing population. In 1911, the site was expanded to become the privately owned Glen Echo Amusement Park, a popular facility that operated until 1968.The National Park Service (NPS) now operates the park, which serves the Washington area as a regional cultural resource when offering classes, workshops and performances in the visual and performing arts. The park is known for its Streamline Moderne architecture, an antique Dentzel carousel and its historic Spanish Ballroom, as well as for its children's theater and social dance programs. Visitors also come to the park to participate in its festivals and events, which include the Washington Folk Festival and a Family Day. The NPS maintains a visitors center and conducts park history tours. More than 350,000 people attend events and participate in instructional activities at the park during each year.

The Clara Barton National Historic Site, which includes the Clara Barton House, was established in 1974 to interpret the life of Clara Barton (1821–1912), an American pioneer teacher, nurse, and humanitarian who was the founder of the American Red Cross. The site is located 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Washington D.C. in Glen Echo, Maryland. The United States National Historic Site protects 9 acres (0.04 km2) of land at her Glen Echo home including the 38-room former residence of Barton. The site is managed by the George Washington Memorial Parkway, a unit of the National Park Service. The first national historic site dedicated to the accomplishments of a woman, it preserves the early history of the American Red Cross and the last home of its founder. Barton spent the last 15 years of her life in her Glen Echo home (1897-1912), and it served as an early headquarters of the American Red Cross as well.

Glen Echo is a town in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, that was chartered in 1904. The population was 279 at the 2020 census.

Cabin John Creek is a tributary stream of the Potomac River in Montgomery County, Maryland. The watershed covers an area of 26 square miles (67 km2). The headwaters of the creek originate in the city of Rockville, and the creek flows southward for 10.9 miles (17.5 km) to the Potomac River.

Cabin John-Brookmont was a census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland (adjacent to Washington, D.C.) during the 1980 and 1990 censuses, which included the primary communities of Cabin John and Brookmont. The population recorded in 1990 was 5,341 and consisted of 2,168 housing units. The census area disbanded to form Cabin John and Brookmont in 2000. The ZIP codes serving the area are 20816 and 20818.

The Seymour Krieger House, also known as Katinas House, is a historic home located at Bethesda, Montgomery County, Maryland. It was built in 1958, and is a one-story, steel-framed building constructed of all-stretcher coursed brick (painted white). It features marlite panels with bands of large plate-glass windows and sliding-glass doors set within steel frames. It is set upon a concrete foundation. The International style house is one of four residential buildings architect Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) designed in Maryland. The landscaping was designed by Dan Kiley (1912-2004).It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

The Union Arch Bridge, also called the "Cabin John Bridge", is a historic masonry structure in Cabin John, Maryland. It was designed as part of the Washington Aqueduct. The bridge construction began in 1857 and was completed in 1864. The roadway surface was added later. The bridge was designed by Alfred Landon Rives, and built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers under the direction of Lieutenant Montgomery C. Meigs.The Union Arch Bridge was designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1972 and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Brookmont is a census-designated place and unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 3,751. Brookmont is often considered part of neighboring Bethesda because it falls within Bethesda's 20816 zip code.

Kryptos is a sculpture by the American artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters, the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia. Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the four encrypted messages it bears. Of these four messages, the first three have been solved, while the fourth message remains one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world. The sculpture continues to be of interest to cryptanalysts, both amateur and professional, who are attempting to decipher the fourth passage. The artist has so far given four clues to this passage.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the President and Cabinet of the United States. Following the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and this group was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency by implementation of the National Security Act of 1947. Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is a domestic security service, the CIA has no law enforcement function and is mainly focused on overseas intelligence gathering, with only limited domestic intelligence collection. The CIA serves as the national manager for HUMINT, coordinating activities across the IC. It also carries out covert action at the behest of the President. It exerts foreign political influence through its paramilitary operations units, such as the Special Activities Center. The CIA was instrumental in establishing intelligence services in many countries, such as Germany's BND. It has also provided support to several foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, training in torture, and technical support. It was involved in many regime changes, and carrying out terrorist attacks and planned assassinations of foreign leaders.Since 2004, the CIA is organized under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Despite having had some of its powers transferred to the DNI, the CIA has grown in size as a response to the September 11 attacks. In 2013, The Washington Post reported that in the fiscal year 2010, the CIA had the largest budget of all IC agencies, exceeding previous estimates.The CIA has increasingly expanded its role, including covert paramilitary operations. One of its largest divisions, the Information Operations Center (IOC), has officially shifted focus from counterterrorism to offensive cyber operations.The agency has been the subject of many controversies, including human rights violations, domestic wiretapping, propaganda, and allegations of drug trafficking.