Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Spies Everywhere!” a look at Washington D.C.’s World War I spy panic, with Mark Benbow, visiting lecturer in American History at George Washington University and retired associate professor of history at Marymount University.

As America got pulled into World War I, fears arose that the Germans wouldn’t wait for us to come to them and instead would seek to threaten us on our own shores. A period of anti-German hysteria arose, and we entered a period of see-something say-something in which Americans thought they saw spies and saboteurs everywhere.

Reports from concerned citizens came pouring in: A car with an unusual hood was seen cruising through the area! Someone was taking photos of the Great Falls from the Virginia side! Men and women were seen walking into the woods carrying a wooden box! A man kept bottles of chemicals!

Join local historian Mark Benbow to learn about that time of heightened fear and about some of the juiciest, funniest, and most aggravating cases handled by authorities. It’s a great glimpse of local history and what can happen when fear gets the better of us.

You’ll learn how the Bureau of Investigation–the forerunner of the FBI–took the reports seriously and investigated each one to make sure the Imperial German government was not operating agents in our nation’s capital. Its files from 1917-1919 are filled with reports ranging from the serious to the ludicrous.

The bureau never found any real spies or saboteurs in the District of Columbia, but it did let a genuine one slip past. It also uncovered a burglary ring, disrupted a lover’s lane, and revealed a secret marriage. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A 1917 U.S. Army poster warns of spies in our midst. (Boston Public Library.)