Virginia Timeline of Events

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Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

Timeline of Events

1584

3.25.1584

Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia.

6.4.1584

Sir Walter Raleigh establishes the first English colony on Roanoke Island, old Virginia (now North Carolina).

1607

4.26.1607

English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.

1609

5.23.1609

Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia takes place.

7.28.1609

Bermuda is first settled by survivors of the English ship Sea Venture ''en route'' to Virginia.

1614

4.5.1614

In Virginia, Native American Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe.

1619

12.4.1619

38 colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembark in Virginia and give thanks to God (this is considered by many to be the first Thanksgiving in the Americas).

1677

5.29.1677

Treaty of Middle Plantation establishes peace between the Virginia colonists and the local Natives.

1754

5.28.1754

French and Indian War: in the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania.

1773

10.12.1773

America's first insane asylum opens for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' in Virginia

1781

9.28.1781

American forces backed by a French fleet begin the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, during the American Revolutionary War.

1788

6.25.1788

Virginia becomes the 10th state to ratify the United States Constitution.

1800

8.30.1800

Gabriel Prosser leads a slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia

1831

11.5.1831

Nat Turner, American slave leader, is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia.

1846

7.9.1846

The territory of the District of Columbia south of the Potomac River (39 mi² or about 100 km²) is returned to Virginia through an Act of Congress.

1861

4.17.1861

American Civil War: Virginia secedes from the United States.

4.20.1861

American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.

7.16.1861

American Civil War: at the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops begin a 25 mile march into Virginia for what will become The First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.

1862

3.8.1862

American Civil War: The iron-clad Ship CSS (formerly USS Merrimack) is launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

4.16.1862

American Civil War: The Battle at Lee's Mills in Virginia.

12.31.1862

American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.

1863

6.9.1863

American Civil War: Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia.

1865

3.25.1865

American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces temporarily capture Fort Stedman from the Union.

4.26.1865

Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln, in Virginia.

1870

1.26.1870

American Civil War: Virginia rejoins the Union.

1956

4.30.1956

Former Vice President and Senator Alben Barkley dies during a speech in Virginia. He collapses after proclaiming "I would rather be a servant in the house of the lord than sit in the seats of the mighty."

1960

1.21.1960

Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board.

1989

11.7.1989

Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States.