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1607 English
colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River to found Jamestown, the first permanent English
settlement in the United States
.
1609 Bermuda is first settled, by English shipwreck victims en route to Virginia.
1609 Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia.
1610 In Jamestown
, Virginia, only 60 out of 500 settlers survive over winter and they may have to rely on cannibalism
.
1614 In Virginia, Native American
Pocahontas
marries English
colonist John Rolfe.
1619 Thirty-eight colonists
from Berkeley Parish in England
disembark in Virginia and give thanks to God
(this is considered by some to be the first Thanksgiving
in the Americas
).
1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation establishes peace between the Virginia colonists and the local Indians.
1678 About 1200 Irish families sail from Barbados
to Virginia and the Carolinas
1712 The delivering of the infamous William Lynch Speech, which helped exert submissiveness on the African American
slaves in Virginia.
1755 General Braddock lands in Virginia to take command of the English forces against the French in North America
1776 American Revolutionary War: Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Continental Congress
a resolution calling for a Declaration of Independence
.
1788 Virginia ratifies the United States Constitution
and becomes the 10th U.S. state
.
1839 Longwood University founded, Farmville, Virginia.
1839 The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
1846 The portion of the District of Columbia that was ceded by Virginia in 1790 is re-ceded to Virginia.
1846 The portion of the District of Columbia that was ceded by Virginia in 1790 is re-ceded to Virginia.
1852 Democrat Franklin Pierce
of New Hampshire
defeats Whig Winfield Scott
of Virginia in the U.S. presidential election
1859 John Brown
raids Harper's Ferry
in Virginia, the signal for a general slave rebellion.
1861 American Civil War
: West Virginia
secedes from Virginia.
1862 American Civil War: The iron-clad CSS ''Virginia''
(formerly USS ''Merrimack'') is launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
1863 American Civil War
: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia.
1863 American Civil War
: Battle of Bristoe Station - Confederate General Robert E. Lee forces fail to drive the Union army out of Virginia.
1864 American Civil War: Battle of New Market, Virginia - Students from the Virginia Military Institute fight alongside the Confederate Army to force Union General Franz Sigel out of the Shenandoah Valley.
1865 American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Steadman from the Union.
1870 American Civil War
: Virginia rejoins the Union
1884 A severe earthquake
, magnitude 5.5
, (intensity VII) occurs off the northeast Atlantic coast. The area affected extends from central Virginia to southern Maine
, and west as far as Cleveland.
1967 American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell
is assassinated in Arlington, Virginia.
1975 The Busch Gardens Williamsburg Theme Park opens in Virginia.
1989 Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American
governor in the United States
.
1990 Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American
governor as he takes office in Richmond
, Virginia.
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