(Updated at 3:45 p.m.) Wondering where exactly the Deep Throat parking garage is in Arlington? There’s an iPhone (and Android) app for that.
A recently-updated app called It Happened Here detects your location and tells you interesting things that happened around you. Currently the app has information on six metro areas, including Washington. Among the interesting waypoints it will tell you about in Arlington:
* The strip mall parking lot where the founder of the American Nazi Party was assassinated in 1967
* The parking garage in which Washington Post reporters met in secret with “Deep Throat” in 1972
* The high school where Sandra Bullock became a cheerleader
* The place where Orville Wright “invented” the airline passenger in 1908
* The place where one end of the first trans-Atlantic voice communication took place in 1915
It Happened Here was developed by Ken Dodelin, an Arlington resident, with the help of some students in an Entrepreneurial Journalism class he teaches at Georgetown University’s Clarendon campus.
In addition to Washington, the app is also available for New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Dodelin says he plans to add two more cities early next year.
It Happened Here is available from the iTunes App Store for $2.99.
Related Posts
- The Strange History of Freedom Park June 8, 2011
- You Can Own History, But It’s a Fixer-Upper March 16, 2011
- A Columbia Pike History Lesson Tonight September 9, 2010
- Long Lines at Clarendon Apple Store for iPhone 4 Debut June 24, 2010


The Wrights invented the airline passenger? Who knew! What I want to find is the a&&^%le who invented the TSA Agent Screening Instructor. I’ve got a thing or two to say to that guy.
Best part of the story, if I recall, is that he was also the first airline passenger fatality. That’s irony, or something.
Hey he took my idea from my thread in the discussion boards here!
Also available for Droid: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.winit.ithappnedheredc&feature=more_from_developer
I had to look this up. Can we get an update to the post that points out that it’s not iPhone exclusive?
Already exists. It’s called geocaching
$2.99 and only one city?
It’s hard to believe that lil’ Java Shack used to be the HQ of the Nazi party. The place definitely has recovered some karma under its new tenants…
You can also find the text of all historic markers in the County at the Arlington Historical Society site: http://www.arlingtonhistory.org/learn-2/historic-sites/
Nice link…thanks for sharing it!
Georgetown has a Clarendon campus?
Yep…at Wilson & Highland.