The Inner Harbor along the Light Street quay on the soft spring evening of April 12, 1976, was alive with crowds and music. More than 500 of Baltimore’s beautiful people were milling about, shaking hands, congratulating one another. The center of the festivities was the Grand Opening aboard the three-decker excursion steamer “Nobska,” majestic in white, sparkling in the late afternoon sun. It was presented as Baltimore’s first floating—appropriately glamrous--restaurant. But the Nobska could not open because it was closed. Here’s the story.

About 8:45 on a Tuesday morning in the late 1950s, half a dozen mothers and some fathers with their four and five year olds in hand are milling about the lobby of WBAL-TV. These mothers and fathers and children were going to be on TeeVee , on Miss Nancy’s ----Romper Room! ---- where each child hoped to gain stardom to the tuned in world of “Do-Bees.” The show was a huge success in many cities— due in large measure to one little toddler from Baltimore telling Miss Nancy that he had to “go” and was in fact, “going” while on camera!

Local historian Gil Sandler takes us back in Baltimore history

On the Saturday afternoon of July 25, 1943, something unusual was going on in Baltimore’s Penn station on Charles Street just above Mt. Royal. In those wartime days, the station was a round-the-clock melee of soldiers and sailors and husbands and wives and lovers and loved ones embracing in hellos and goodbyes. That is why on this wartime Saturday afternoon a couple chose to get married in Penn Station, in a hurry-- while they could still be together, only minutes before the groom was to depart for duty. The priest who married the couple invited each of the servicemen to kiss the bride, who in a gracious act of patriotism, went along--one kiss per serviceman!

A story about how Rivers Chambers and his band changed a country western lament to keep the party going.

Gil tells us about what led up to the 'opening' of the Orleans Street Viaduct in 1935.

Gil tells us how our beloved crab could've been second fiddle to another civic symbol: the banana.

Local historian Gil Sandler takes us back in Baltimore history

Gil remembers a complete surrender of the Orioles management to the neighborhood boys of Baltimore.

Baltimore, 1940: In the gym of the Jewel Box Girly Club on 'The Block,' Eli Hanover worked at his dream, teaching contenders how to box and making Baltimore a world-renowned center for boxing.