[6] Bethesda is located in the traditional territory of the indigenous Native Piscataway and Nacotchtank at the time of European colonization.

Fur trader Henry Fleet became the first European to visit the area, reaching it by sailing up the Potomac River.

[7] Most settlers in colonial Maryland were tenant farmers who paid their rent in tobacco, and colonists continued to expand farther north in search of fertile land.

The establishment of Washington, D.C., in 1790 deprived Montgomery County of its economic center at Georgetown, although the event had little effect on the small farmers throughout Bethesda.

The church burned in 1849 and was rebuilt the same year about 100 yards (91 m) south, and its former location became the Cemetery of the Bethesda Meeting House.

The tracks were removed in 1994, and the first part of the trail was opened in 1998; it has become the most used rail-trail in the United States, averaging over one million users per year.

These included Brainard W. Parker ("Cedarcroft", 1892), James Oyster ("Strathmore", 1899), George E. Hamilton ("Hamilton House", 1904; now the Stone Ridge School), Luke I. Wilson ("Tree Tops", 1926), Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor ("Wild Acres", 1928–29), and George Freeland Peter ("Stone House", 1930).

In 1930, Armistead Peter's pioneering manor house "Winona" (1873) became the clubhouse of the Woodmont Country Club on land that is now part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus.

Merle Thorpe's mansion "Pook's Hill" (1927, razed 1948) became the home-in-exile of the Norwegian royal family during World War II.

[12] One 1938 restrictive covenant in the Bradley Woods subdivision of Bethesda said, "No part of the land hereby conveyed, shall ever be used, or occupied by or sold, demised, transferred, conveyed, unto, or in trust for, leased, or rented, or given to negroes, or any person or persons of negro blood or extraction or to any person of the Semitic Race, blood, or origin, which racial description shall be deemed to include Armenians, Jews, Hebrews, Persians, Syrians, Greeks and Turks, or to any person of the Mongolian Race, blood, or origin, which racial description shall be deemed to include Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolians, except that this paragraph shall not be held to exclude partial occupancy of the premises by domestic servants of the purchaser or purchasers.

[15] In the 2000s, the strict height limits on construction in the District of Columbia led to the development of mid-and high-rise office and residential towers around the Bethesda Metro stop.

Toward the South, Rockville Pike becomes Wisconsin Avenue near the NIH Campus and continues beyond Bethesda through Chevy Chase, Friendship Heights and into Washington, D.C., ending in Georgetown.

The area commonly known as Downtown Bethesda is centered at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue, Old Georgetown Road and East-West Highway.

This intersection is about two and one-half miles from Washington, D.C.'s western boundary, making Bethesda a close-in suburb of the nation's capital.

The average price of a four-bedroom, two-bath home in Bethesda in 2010 was $806,817 (which ranks it as the twentieth most expensive community in America).

Other federal institutions include the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division.

On the professional services side, numerous banks (PNC, Capital One Bank) brokerage firms (MorganStanley, Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Fidelity) and law firms (Ballard Spahr, JDKatz, Paley Rothman, Lerch Early & Brewer) maintain offices in Bethesda.

A number of ambassador residences are in Bethesda, including those of Bangladesh, Haiti, Cape Verde, Guyana, Honduras, Lesotho, Morocco, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Zimbabwe.

Also starting in the heart of downtown Bethesda is the Capital Crescent Trail, which follows the old tracks of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from Georgetown in Washington, D.C., to Silver Spring.

[28][29][27] The institution, giving supplemental education to Japanese-speaking children in the Washington, D.C., area, was founded in 1958,[30] making it the oldest Japanese government-sponsored supplementary school in the U.S.[31] The Writer's Center in Bethesda publishes Poet Lore, the longest continuously running poetry journal in the United States.

[33] The Purple Line will allow riders from Bethesda to move between the Red, Green, and Orange lines of the Washington Metro transportation system, as well as to MARC and Amtrak trains, without needing to ride into central Washington, D.C.[34] Local buses include: Long-distance buses include: