[4] Others who have appeared at the club include monarchs, prime ministers, premiers, members of Congress, Cabinet officials, ambassadors, scholars, entertainers, business leaders, and athletes.

The Club founders laid down a credo which promised "to promote social enjoyment among the members, to cultivate literary taste, to encourage friendly intercourse among newspapermen and those with whom they were thrown in contact in the pursuit of their vocation, to aid members in distress and to foster the ethical standards of the profession."

In 1919, female journalists founded the Women's National Press Club, when the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.

The Washington Press Club Foundation (WPCF) continues as a nonprofit organization to promote equality, education and excellence among journalists in print and broadcast media.

[10][11][12][13][14] Oral History videos (Mary Garber, Betsy Wade, Dorothy Gilliam, Eileen Shanahan, Ruth Cowan Nash) are archived by C-SPAN.

The first African-American male journalist (Louis Lautier) was accepted for National Press Club membership in 1955.

Aide George Weaver, was served luncheon, but his newsman host got an anonymous letter warning him never to bring a Negro again.In 1925, National Press Club president Henry L. Sweinhart appointed a special building committee to plan for a permanent club headquarters.

In 1932, Bascom N. Timmons, who established an independent news bureau in Washington, D.C., became president of the press club.

Over the years Nikita Khrushchev, Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek), Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Muhammad Ali, Charles de Gaulle, Robert Redford, Boris Yeltsin, Elizabeth Taylor, Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat, Dalai Lama, Angelina Jolie, George Carlin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Elizabeth Warren have all spoken at the club.

Speaking at the National Press Club to mark his retirement, CBS commentator Eric Sevareid called the club the "sanctum sanctorum of American journalists" and said "It's the Westminster Hall, it's Delphi, it's Mecca, the Wailing Wall for everybody in this country having anything to do with the news business; the only hallowed place I know of that's absolutely bursting with irreverence."

"[31] Among the winners include Brian Karem, Rana Ayyub,[32] Joseph Hosey, Tim Tai, Mahmoud Abou Zeid, and Ahmed Humaidan.