In this photograph from 1986, White House Executive Pastry Chef Roland Mesnier poses in his chef's whites with a group outside L’Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda, Maryland. To the left of him stands assistant pastry chef Franette McCulloch. On the far right is the Academy's founder Francois Dionot. Chef McCulloch was a student of Chef Mesnier when he taught at L’Academie de Cuisine and went on to teach there herself. Standing between Chef McCulloch and Chef Mesnier is likely Chef Mark Ramsdell, White House assistant pastry chef during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, who came to teach at the L’Academie de Cuisine and eventually became its director. This photograph is part of a personal collection belonging to former White House Executive Pastry Chef Roland Mesnier. Chef Mesnier created elaborate desserts for the White House from 1980 to 2004.

This photograph, taken by CmSgt. Hans H. Deffner of the United States Air Force, shows Air Force One arriving for landing at Andrews Air Force Base near Prince George's County, Maryland, on September 11, 2001. President George W. Bush received news of the suspected terrorist attacks that morning during a visit to Emma E. Brooker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida. After delivering brief remarks at the school, Bush boarded Air Force One for his own protection, accompanied by roughly 65 advisors, security agents, and staff members. For the next several hours, President Bush worked from his office aboard Air Force One, where he monitored the crisis using the secure phone lines and televisions installed in the aircraft. Prior to arriving at Andrews Air Force Base for the president's return to the White House, Air Force One stopped at military bases in Louisiana and Nebraska for refueling and security purposes.

This landscape is by Alfred Wordsworth Thompson, an artist who captured American Civil War battle scenes for publications such as Harper's Weekly and the Illustrated London News. Thompson composed both engraved illustrations and paintings. This particular painting depicts the October 20, 1861 cannon fire across the Potomac River near Ball's Bluff and Leesburg in Virginia and Harrison Island and Edwards Ferry in Maryland that was a precursor to the Battle of Ball's Bluff on October 21st.

This map of Virginia and Maryland was originally created by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, father of Thomas Jefferson, and published by French map maker Robert de Vaugondy. In addition to the colonies of Virginia and Maryland, the map shows parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. To the west beyond the Allegheny Mountains lies the French territory of Louisiana, which at the time encompassed much of the western and northern portions of the North American continent.