Songfacts®:

• In 1888, The Washington Post newspaper got a pair of new owners, former Postmaster General Frank Hatton and former congressman Beriah Wilkins, who devised a plan to edge out the competition. They created the Washington Post Amateur Authors' Association and sponsored an essay contest for public-school students in Washington, DC. For the awards ceremony, they tasked esteemed composer John Philip Sousa, a DC native who led the President's Own Marine Corps Band, to write a new march for the occasion.
  
  On June 15, 1889, the Marine Band debuted "The Washington Post" to 25,000 spectators that congregated on the grounds of the Smithsonian Museum. The march became an immediate sensation and brought Sousa international fame when it became associated with the emerging two-step dance that replaced the waltz in popularity. Unfortunately, the young composer knew little about finances and sold the piece to publisher Harry Coleman for just $35. By August 1889, Coleman published arrangements for band, piano, and orchestra, and the march took off.
  
  In a 1927 interview with The Washington Post, Sousa recounted how the piece swept the globe:
  
  "A little while after [the march] appeared it was taken up by the dancing masters as the most appropriate music for a two-step, and its popularity increased by bounds until it was strongly identified with the two-step that when I went to Germany touring with my band in 1900 I found that they called the two-step, not a two-step, but 'The Washington Post,' using the name just as they would waltz, polka, &c. Perhaps it is as well known as any piece of music in the world.
  
  A soldier of the late war told me when they were going through a French village they stopped at a little house to get a drink of water and an old peasant came to the door, who invited them in, and when he realized they were American soldiers, he called his little girl of 13 or 14 years and told her to play some American music for the Americans. She sat at her little piano and played 'The Washington Post.' I was told that at the dedication of the monument to Richard Wagner, the German band played as a typical American piece, 'The Washington Post.'"
• Contrary to some accounts, US President Benjamin Harrison was not present at the ceremony where the Marine Band introduced the march. Harrison was supposed to attend but decided to spend the afternoon cruising the river on the Postmaster General's yacht. He didn't entirely blow off the event, though. He sent his private secretary, E.W. Halford, and Col. John M. Wilson, the Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, to the Smithsonian in his stead.
• This was used in these TV shows:
  Stranger Things ("Chapter Seven: The Bite" - 2019)
  GLOW ("Mother Of All Matches" - 2018)
  Brooklyn Nine-Nine ("USPIS" - 2014)
  Boardwalk Empire ("The Emerald City" - 2010)
  It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia ("The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition" - 2008)
  King Of The Hill ("The Accidental Terrorist" - 2008)
  Veronica Mars ("Return Of The Kane" - 2004)
  Daria ("I Loathe A Parade" - 2000)
  The Ren & Stimpy Show ("Mad Dog Hoek/Haunted House" - 1992)
  Northern Exposure ("Democracy In America" - 1992; "Realpolitik" - 1994)
  Mork & Mindy ("Hold That Mork" - 1979)
  The Andy Griffith Show ("The Mayberry Band" - 1962)
  
  And these movies:
  Sex Appeal (2022)
  Rudderless (2014)
  Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
  When The Drum Is Beating (2011)
  A Heartbeat Away (2011)
  The A-Team (2010)
  Milk (2008)
  Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
  Bicentennial Man (1999)
  Snow Falling On Cedars (1999)
  Renaissance Man (1994)
  Patriot Games (1992)
  Back To The Future Part II (1989)
  Funny Farm (1988)
  National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
  The Sting (1973)
  The Last Picture Show (1971)
  Patton (1970)
  M*A*S*H (1970)
  The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
  Fifth Avenue Girl (1939)
  The Great Ziegfeld (1936)