Timeline Virginia
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Virginia’s state motto is Sic semper tyrannis (thus
always to tyrants). John Wilkes Booth shouted the phrase after shooting
Pres. Lincoln.
(WSJ, 10/12/06, p.W13)
35 Mil BC A
meteorite impacted at what is now Chesapeake Bay and formed the largest
impact crater in the US. The discovery of the 53-mile wide Chesapeake
Bay Impact Crater was announced in 1995.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, p.A10)(SFC, 11/7/05, p.A4)
14Mil BC In 1990 paleontologists found bones from a
35-foot whale in an quarry in eastern Virginia. It took several years
to prepare and identify them as a new species. It was named
Eobalaenoptera harrisoni, after Carter Harrison, a Virginia Museum of
Natural History volunteer.
(AP, 6/14/04)
17000BC-15000BC The Cactus Hill site, 45 miles south
of Richmond, Va., was reported in 2000 to contain evidence of human
settlers from this period.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.A2)
1000-1400 Monacan Indian remains from west-central
Virginia were unearthed in 1901 by antiquarian E.P. Valentine for
display in a museum. The remains were reburied in 1998.
(Arch, 9/00, p.58)
1561 Dec 9, Edwin Sandys, a
founder of the Virginia colony, was born.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1570 Spanish Jesuits established
the Ajacan mission on the York River, a few miles from Jamestown would
be established 37 years later. The priests were all killed in 1571 and
the site was abandoned.
(AH, 6/07, p.31)
1571 Feb 2, All eight members of a
Jesuit mission in Virginia were murdered by Indians who pretended to be
their friends.
(HN, 2/2/99)
1571 Feb 9, Algonquin Indians
attacked the Jesuit mission on the Virginia peninsula killing Fr. Juan
Bautista de Segura and 4 other remaining priests.
(AH, 2/06, p.15)
1584 Mar 25, Sir Walter Raleigh,
English explorer, courtier, and writer, renewed Humphrey Gilbert's
patent to explore North America. He went on to settle the Virginia
colony on Roanoke Island (South Carolina), naming it after the virgin
queen.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.23)(MC, 3/25/02)
1586 Jul 27, Sir Walter Raleigh
returned to England from Virginia.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1587 Virginia was initially called
Windgancon, meaning "what gay clothes you wear." The names Cape Fear,
Cape Hatteras, the Chowan and Neuse rivers, Chesapeake and Virginia,
were all names that date to the first colony.
(SFEM, 11/15/98, p.23)
1587 Aug 18, In the Roanoke Island
colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare became parents of a baby girl whom
they name Virginia Dare, the first English child born on what is now
Roanoke Island, N.C., then considered Walter Raleigh’s second
settlement in Roanoke, Virginia. Virginia Dare, daughter of John White,
became the first child of English parents to be born on American soil.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.24)(AP, 8/18/97)(HN, 8/18/98)
1587-1590 The Lost Colony of Roanoke Island
disappeared during this period. It consisted of 116 colonists and
included Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World.
When the Roanoke Island colony was running out of supplies, John White
was sent back to England for help. His return was delayed by the
Spanish Armada‘s attacks against England. When he arrived on Roanoke
Island in 1591, the only trace of the colonists were the cryptic
messages "CRO" and "CROATOAN" carved on a tree and a palisade
post, respectively.
(NG, Geographica, Jan, 94)(HNQ, 7/3/00)
1588 An eye-witness account of the
New World was provided by "A Briefe and True Account of the New Found
Land of Virginia," written by Thomas Harriot. It recounted English
attempts from 1584-1588 to colonize what later became known as eastern
North Carolina and encouraged further settlement and investment there.
In 1590 Flemish engraver Theodor de Bry published an illustrated
edition featuring paintings by English colonist John White.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.24)(Arch, 5/05, p.26)
1603 Jul 29, Bartholomew Gilbert
was killed in the colony of Virginia by Indians, during a search for
the missing Roanoke colonists.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1605-1612 Don Pedro de Zuniga served as the Spanish
ambassador to England. Zuniga actively engaged in espionage while
serving as ambassador to England, sending various reports and maps
concerning the English colony in Virginia to the Spanish court.
(AH, 6/07,
p.31)(www.she-philosopher.com/ib/bios/zuniga.html)
1606 Dec 20, Virginia Company
settlers left London to establish Jamestown.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(MC, 12/20/01)
1606-1612 A drought in the American southeast was the
worst in 770 years and caused the deaths of many Jamestown colonists in
1910.
(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A3)
1607 Apr 26, Ships under the
command of Capt. Christopher Newport sought shelter in Chesapeake Bay.
The forced landing led to the founding of Jamestown on the James River,
the first English settlement. An expedition of English colonists,
including Capt. John Smith, went ashore at Cape Henry, Va., to
establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western
Hemisphere.
(NG, Sept. 1939, p.356) (AP, 4/26/98)(HN, 4/26/98)
1607 May 13, English colonists
landed near the James River in Virginia. They went shore the next day
and founded a colony named Jamestown. In 1996 archeologist discovered
the original Jamestown Fort and the remains of one settler, a young
white male who died a violent death. In 2003 David A. Price authored
"Love and Hate in Jamestown."
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A2)(AP, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/24/98)(WSJ,
11/25/03, p.D8)(AP, 5/13/07)
1607 May 14, Some 104 men and boys
filed ashore from the small sailing ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and
Discovery, onto what English adventurers came to call Jamestown Island
in Virginia. Capt. John Smith (27) was among the Englishmen who founded
Jamestown.
(HN, 10/3/00)(AP, 5/14/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00,
p.T12)(ON, 2/07, p.7)
1607 May 24, Captain Christopher
Newport and 105 followers founded Jamestown on the mouth of the James
River in Virginia. They had left England with 144 members, 39 died on
the way over. The colony was near the large Indian village of
Werowocomoco, home of Pocahontas, the daughter Powhatan, an Algonquin
chief. In 2003 archeologists believed that they had found the site of
Werowocomoco, where Powhatan resided from 1607-1609.
(HN, 5/24/99)(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A2)(Arch, 1/06, p.27)
1607 May 26, Some 200 Indian
warriors stormed the unfinished stockade at Jamestown, Va. 2 settlers
were killed and 10 seriously wounded before they were repulsed by
cannon fire from the colonists’ 3 moored ships.
(ON, 2/07, p.7)
1607 Jun 15, Colonists in North
America completed James Fort in Jamestown. Hostilities with the Indians
ended as ambassadors said their emperor, Powhatan, had commanded local
chiefs to live in peace with the English.
(HN, 6/15/98)(ON, 2/07, p.7)
1607 Jun 21, The Church of England
Episcopal Church, the 1st Protestant Episcopal parish in America, was
established at Jamestown, Va. The 39 articles of the Episcopal Faith
included the statement: "There is but one living and true God,
everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power,
wisdom and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both
visible and invisible."
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A11)(MC, 6/21/02)(WSJ, 6/20/03,
p.W15)
1608 Jan 7, An accidental fire
devastated the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia Colony.
(AP, 1/7/08)
1608 Jan, John Smith met with the
Indian emperor Powhatan at Werocomoco on the Pamunkey River. He studied
the Powhattan language and culture. The Powhattans were an aggressive
tribe and under Chief Powhatan’s leadership, they had conquered and
subjugated more than 20 other tribes. Pocahontas was a Powhattan Indian
girl of 10-11 years when she new Smith in Virginia. Records of the
colony were kept by William Strachey, its official historian. The
Powhattans were an aggressive tribe and under Chief Powhattan’s
leadership, they conquered and subjugated more than 20 other tribes.
Before coming to Virginia, John Smith had served as a mercenary in
Hungary and was wounded, captured and sold into slavery by his Turkish
adversaries; he escaped by killing his owner.
(WSJ, 6/13/95, p.A-18)(ON, 2/07, p.8)
1608 Aug 13, John Smith's story of
Jamestown's 1st days was submitted for publication.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1608 Sep 10, John Smith was
elected president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia. Records
of the colony were kept by William Strachey, its official historian.
(WSJ, 6/13/95, p.A-18)(AP, 9/10/97)
1608 Oct 1, Some 200 new settlers
arrived at the Jamestown colony, including Dutch and Polish
glass-makers, artisans and the first European women in the colony.
(http://spuscizna.org/spuscizna/1608.html)(AH, 6/07,
p.27)
1608 Bowling in Jamestown was
banned after workers were found bowling instead of building the fort.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A3)
1608 Settlers in Jamestown,
Virginia, shipped distilled tar back to its sponsors in England, the
first manufactured item exported from the US.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, Z1 p.6)
1608 Capt. John Smith seeking
passage to the Pacific and the South Seas sailed through a Chesapeake
Bay tributary and was amazed at Indian skill in building log canoes.
(NG, Sept. 1939, J. Maloney p.357)
1608 Robert Hunt (b.1568), the 1st
chaplain at Jamestown, Va., died.
(http://tinyurl.com/2jv6qq)
1609 Jul 25, Admiral William
Somers, head of a 7-ship fleet enroute to Virginia, spied land after
being blown off course and soon drove his ship, the Sea Venture, onto
the reefs of Bermuda. William Strachey (1572-1621), was also aboard the
Sea Venture and later sent a letter to England that described the
event. The letter is thought by many to have been the inspiration for
Shakespeare’s "Tempest." Strachey became secretary of the colony at
Jamestown, Virginia, after his arrival there on May 23, 1610. In 2009
Hobson Woodward authored: A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the
Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare’s “The
Tempest.”
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.29)(SFC, 8/18/09,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Venture)
1609 Capt. John Smith returned to
England from Jamestown (Virginia) after being wounded in an accidental
explosion of gunpowder.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)
1609-1610 A dry spell that began in 1606 was
responsible for "the starving time" at the Jamestown colony. Nearly
half of the 350 colonists alive in June, 1610, were dead by the end of
the summer.
(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A17)
1610 Feb 28, Thomas West, Baron de
La Mar, was appointed governor of Virginia.
(HN, 2/28/98)(MC, 2/28/02)
1610 May 24, Sir Thomas Gates
instituted "laws divine moral and marshal," a harsh civil code for
Jamestown, Va.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1610 Jun 10, English Lord De La
Ware and his supply ships arrived at Jamestown allowing the colony to
recover and survive.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_West,_3rd_Baron_De_La_Warr)
c1610 In 2004 archeologists
reported finding a skull fragment from Jamestown, Va., dating to about
this time that showed evidence of skull surgery and an autopsy.
(SFC, 12/2/04, p.A7)
1611 The Jamestown settlement in
Virginia pushed west with the establishment of Henricus (later Henrico)
on the James River.
(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1611 Don Diego de Molina, a
Spanish spy, was taken prisoner in Jamestown. Molina managed to send
reports about the colony to agents in London. When he eventually
returned to Spain, Molina urged King Philip to eliminate the English
presence in Virginia, but Philip again demurred.
(AH, 6/07, p.31)
1613 The colonists at Jamestown
kidnapped Pocahontas and held her for ransom to force her father to
free some English hostages and to return some stolen tools.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1614 Apr 5, American Indian
princess Pocahontas (d.1617) married English Jamestown colonist John
Rolfe in Virginia. Having converted to Christianity, she went by the
name Lady Rebecca. Their marriage brought a temporary peace between the
English settlers and the Algonquians.
(HN, 5/5/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)(AP, 4/5/08)
1614 English Jamestown colonist
John Rolfe successfully cultivated tobacco for export to England. This
guaranteed the colony’s economic survival.
(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1616 Capt. Samuel Argall, deputy
governor of Jamestown and known as the kidnapper of Pocahontas, was
appointed to run the colony. Within 2 years the public estate was gone,
though his own plantation thrived. The Earl of Warwick sent a ship and
Argall loaded his plunder and absconded to England. Argall was knighted
2 years after his return to England and later served as an adviser on
the governance of Jamestown.
(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.G2)
1616 John Smith authored “A
Description of New England.” It described his exploration of new
England following his departure from Virginia in 1614.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W11)
1616 In a letter to Queen Anne,
Capt. John Smith recalled that Pocahontas had saved the colony at
Jamestown from "death, famine, and utter confusion."
(WSJ, 6/13/95, p.A-18)
1616 American Indian princess
Pocahontas and her husband, Jamestown colonist John Rolfe, sailed to
England with their infant son.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)
1617 Jan 6, Pocahontas, American
Indian princess, attended a court masque with King James I and Queen
Anne.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)
1617 Mar 21, Pocahontas (Rebecca
Rolfe) was buried at the parish church of St. George in Gravesend,
England. As Pocahontas and John Rolfe prepared to sail back to
Virginia, she died reportedly of either small pox or pneumonia. In 2003
Paula Gunn Allen authored "Pocahontas "Medicine Woman, Spy,
entrepreneur, Diplomat."
(AP, 4/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)(HN,
3/21/01)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.M5)
1619 Jul 30, The first
representative assembly in America the House of Burgesses, became the
first legislative assembly in America when it convened at Jamestown, Va.
(AP, 7/30/97)(HN, 7/30/98)
1619 Aug 20, The 1st African
slaves arrived to North America aboard a Dutch privateer. It docked in
Jamestown, Virginia, with twenty human captives among its cargo.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A25)(HN, 8/20/98)(PC, 1992, p.224)
1619 Dec 4, A group of settlers
from Bristol, England, arrived at Berkeley Hundred in present-day
Charles City County, Va., where they held a service thanking God for
their safe arrival. Some suggest this was the true first Thanksgiving
in America, ahead of the Pilgrims' arrival in Massachusetts.
(AP, 12/4/08)
1619 The Virginia Company of
London, sponsor of the Jamestown settlement, built a blast furnace for
working iron. Ruins of the furnace were found in 2007 along Falling
Creek in Chesterfield County, Va.
(AH, 6/07, p.16)
1620 Jan 31, Virginia colony
leaders wrote to the Virginia Company in England, asking for more
orphaned apprentices for employment.
(HN, 1/31/99)
1622 Mar 22, The Powhattan
Confederacy massacred 347-350 colonists in Virginia, a quarter of the
population. On Good Friday over 300 colonists in and around Jamestown,
Virginia, were massacred by the Powhatan Indians. The massacre was led
by the Powhatan chief Opechancanough and began a costly 22-year war
against the English. Opechancanough hoped that killing one quarter of
Virginia’s colonists would put an end to the European threat. The
result of the massacre was just the opposite, however, as English
survivors regrouped and pushed the Powhattans far into the interior.
Opechancanough launched his final campaign in 1644, when he was nearly
100 years old and almost totally blind. He was then captured and
executed.
(WSJ, 10/19/98, p.A24)(HNPD, 10/23/98)(AP, 3/22/99)
1622 Powhattan Indians attacked
the outlying settlements of Jamestown and destroyed the Henricus
settlement.
(www.history.org/foundation/journal/Winter04-05/henricus.cfm)
1623 Mar 5, The 1st American
temperance law was enacted in Virginia.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1624 Mar 5, Class-based
legislation was passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper
class from punishment by whipping.
(HN, 3/5/99)
1624 May 24, James I revoked
Virginia's charter after years of unprofitable operation and it became
a royal colony.
(HN, 5/24/99)(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1631 Jun 21, John Smith (b.1580),
English sailor, soldier and author, died in England. He had helped
found the English colony at Jamestown, Va.
(ON, 2/07, p.9)(www.virtualjamestown.org/jsmith.html)
1632 Colonial Williamsburg,
Virginia, a small city between the York and James rivers was founded.
(www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Colonial_Williamsburg)
1633 Feb 1, The tobacco laws of
Virginia were codified, limiting tobacco production to reduce
dependence on a single-crop economy.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1635 Apr 28, Virginia Governor
John Harvey was accused of treason and removed from office.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1637 John Tradescant the younger,
a widower with a son and daughter, undertook the first of three voyages
from England to Virginia “to gather up all raritye of flowers, plants,
shells.” The King’s request to search for useful trees and herbs, no
doubt played a role in Tradescant’s decision to take this trip during
what must have been a very difficult time.
(www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=2942)
1639 Jan 6, Virginia became the
1st colony to order surplus crops (tobacco) destroyed.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1646 A treaty with Virginia
Indians required the state to protect the Mattaponi from "enemies," but
only on the reservation in King William County. The peace treaty
unraveled the powerful confederation of local Indian tribes and large
amounts of land were ceded to English settlers.
(SFC, 6/4/97, p.A7)(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1647 Jan 2, Nathaniel Bacon
(d.1676), leader of Bacon's Rebellion (1676), Va., was born.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1652 May 10, John Johnson, a free
black, was granted 550 acres in Northampton, Va.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1654 Nov 21, Richard Johnson, a
free black, was granted 550 acres in Virginia.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1656 Mar 10, In the colony of
Virginia, suffrage was extended to all free men regardless of their
religion.
(HN, 3/10/99)
1660 Mar 13, A statute was passed
limiting the sale of slaves in the colony of Virginia.
(HN, 3/13/99)
1661 Virginia became the 3rd
colony to give statutory recognition to slavery. It was preceded by
Mass. in 1641 and Connecticut Virginia in 1650.
(MC, 12/1/01)(HNQ, 5/20/02)
1662 Sep 12, Gov. Berkley of
Virginia was denied his attempts to repeal the Navigation Acts.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1663 Sep 13, The 1st serious
American slave conspiracy occurred in Virginia.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1665 Aug 27, "Ye Bare & Ye
Cubb," the 1st play performed in N. America, was performed at Acomac,
Va.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1667 Sep 23, Slaves in Virginia
were banned from obtaining their freedom by converting to Christianity.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1670 Oct 13, Virginia passed a law
that blacks arriving in the colonies as Christians could not be used as
slaves.
(HN, 10/13/98)
1673 Sep 21, James Needham
returned to Virginia after exploring the land to the west, which would
become Tennessee.
(HN, 9/21/98)
1676 May 10, Bacon's Rebellion
began. It pitted frontiersmen against the government. Bacon’s Rebellion
in Virginia involved an attack on a local Indian community and the
sacking of the colonial capital in Jamestown. It is described by
Catherine McNicol Stock in her 1997 book "Rural Radicals; Righteous
Rage in the American Grain."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, BR. p.8)(HN, 5/10/98)
1676 Jul 29, Nathaniel Bacon was
declared a rebel for assembling frontiersmen to protect settlers from
Indians. [see May 10, Sep 1]
(MC, 7/29/02)
1676 Sep 1, Nathaniel Bacon led an
uprising against English Governor William Berkeley at Jamestown,
Virginia, resulting in the settlement being burned to the ground.
Bacon’s Rebellion in 1675-76 was the first internal insurrection in
America. Bacon's Rebellion came in response to the governor's repeated
refusal to defend the colonists against the Indians. [see May 10, 1676]
(HN, 9/1/99)(HNQ, 10/14/99)
1676 Sep 19, Rebels under
Nathaniel Bacon set Jamestown, Va., on fire. [see Sep 1]
(MC, 9/19/01)
1676 Oct 18, Nathaniel Bacon
(b.1647), who rallied against Virginian government, was killed.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1677 Apr 27, Colonel Jeffreys
became the governor of Virginia.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1677 May 29, King Charles II and
12 Virginia Indian chiefs signed a treaty that established a 3-mile
non-encroachment zone around Indian land. The Mattaponi Indians in 1997
invoked this treaty to protect against encroachment.
(SFC, 6/2/97, p.A3)
1682 Nicholas Wise founded
Norfolk, Va.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, Z1 p.8)
1691 Aug 16, Yorktown, Va., was
founded.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1693 Feb 8, A charter was granted
for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
(AP, 2/8/99)
1693 Feb 13, The College of
William and Mary opened in Virginia.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1698 The Virginia statehouse at
Jamestown burned and the capital was moved to Williamsburg.
(Arch, 1/06, p.26)
1699 Williamsburg became the
capital of Virginia and served as the capital of the British colony
until 1780.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.T7)(AH, 6/07, p.27)
1706 Jul 10, In Virginia Grace
Sherwood (d.1740), aka the Witch of Pungo, was forced to undergo a
trial by water under accusations of being a witch. She floated, a sign
of guilt, and was imprisoned for nearly 8 years. In 2006 the governor
of Virginia officially cleared her name.
(http://tinyurl.com/k42jq)(WSJ, 9/15/06,
p.A1)(http://carolshouse.com/witch/)
1718 Nov 22, A force of British
troops under Lt. Robert Maynard captured English pirate Edward Teach
(b.~1682), better known as "Blackbeard" (aka Captain Drummond), during
a battle near Ocracoke Island, off the North Carolina coast. They
beheaded him. The governor of Virginia had put a price of 100 pounds on
his head.
(AP,
11/22/97)(www.outerbankschamber.com/relocation/history/ocracoke.cfm)
1725 Dec 11, George Mason
(d.1792), American Revolutionary statesman, was born at Gunston Hall
Plantation, situated on the Potomac River some 20 miles south of
Washington D.C. Mason framed the Bill of Rights for the Virginia
Convention in June 1776. This was the model for the first part of
fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and the
basis of the first 10 Amendments to the federal Constitution. Mason
died at Gunston Hall on October 7, 1792.
(HNQ,
2/18/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mason)
1736 May 29, Patrick Henry
(d.1799), American Colonial patriot, orator and governor of Virginia,
was born. He was a slave-owner and justified the fact by saying: "I am
driven along by the general inconvenience of living here without them."
He later said "Give me liberty or give me death."
(SFC,12/897, p.A27)(HN, 5/29/01)
1743 Apr 13, Thomas Jefferson
(d.1826), the third president of the United States, was born in
present-day Albemarle County, Va. He called slavery cruel but included
25 slaves in his daughter’s dowry, took enslaved children to market and
had 10-year-old slaves working 12-hour days in his nail factory. He
stated that blacks were "in reason inferior" and "in imagination they
are dull, tasteless and anomalous. "Were it left to me to decide
whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers
without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the
latter." "History, in general, only informs us what bad government is."
(AP, 4/13/97)(SFC,12/897, p.A27)(AP, 4/13/98)
1748 Lord Fairfax, Virginia land
owner, commissioned a survey of the Patterson Creek Manor, which later
became part of West Virginia. The surveyor was accompanied by the
nephew of Lord Fairfax and the nephew’s best friend, George Washington
(16). The survey was unusually erroneous.
(WSJ, 4/21/06, p.R8)
1750 The Spanish treasure ship La
Galga sank. It was later believed that the wild ponies of Chincoteague
Island off the coast of Virginia came from this ship.
(USAT, 5/7/98, p.9A)(WSJ, 7/17/98, p.A1)
1750-1753 The Wilton mansion on the James River in
Virginia was built to house William Randolph III, his wife Anne Carter
Harrison and their 8 children. It was later moved and reconstructed in
West Richmond as the headquarters of the National Society of The
Colonial Dames of America.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A8)
1751 Mar 16, James Madison
(d.1836), Jefferson’s successor as secretary of state and fourth
president of the United States(1809-17), was born in Port Conway, Va.
He invented the electoral college system "to break the tyranny of the
majority." "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
(V.D.-H.K.p.222)(SFEC, 11/24/96, zone 1 p.2) (AP,
3/16/97)(AP, 10/27/97) (HN, 3/16/98)
1753 Aug 10, Edmund Jennings
Randolph, governor of Virginia and first U.S. attorney general, was
born.
(HN, 8/10/00)
1753 Oct, Robert Dinwiddie,
governor of Virginia, called a meeting to discuss the eviction of
British settlers from homesteads west of the Appalachian Mountains by
French soldiers from Canada. Major George Washington volunteered to
deliver a letter of trespass to French authorities in the Ohio Valley.
(ON, 9/05, p.1)
1753 Dec 14, French Captain
Jacques Le Gardeur rejected the pretensions of the English to ownership
of the Ohio Valley, but promised to forward Virginia Gov. Dinwiddie’s
letter of trespass to his superiors in Canada.
(ON, 9/05, p.2)
1753 In the Virginia Piedmont
Boswell’s Tavern was built and for some 150 years served horseback
riders flagons of spirit through a barred window. The ride-up window
thus predates the drive-in window.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.8)
1754 Jan 6, Major George
Washington, while returning to Virginia, encountered a party of English
settlers and militiamen at Will’s Creek sent by Gov. Dinwiddie to
establish a fort and trading post at the Forks of the Ohio.
(ON, 9/05, p.2)
1754 Apr 2, A small expeditionary
force of 159 men under Lt. Col. George Washington arrived at Will’s
Creek and learned that the French had taken over the new Fort Prince
George at the Forks of the Ohio from British soldiers and frontiersmen
and renamed it Fort Duquesne.
(ON, 9/05, p.2)
1754 Dec, Lt. Col. George
Washington resigned his commission.
(ON, 9/05, p.5)
1758 Apr 28, James Monroe
(d.1831), later secretary of state and the fifth president of the
United States (1817-1825), was born in Westmoreland County, Va. He
created the Monroe Doctrine, warning Europe not to interfere in the
Western Hemisphere.
(HFA, ‘96, p.28)(HNQ, 7/27/99)(HN, 4/28/02)
1758 Jul 24, George Washington was
admitted to Virginia House of Burgesses.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1765 May 29, Patrick Henry
denounced the Stamp Act before Virginia's House of Burgesses. It was
during this speech that Henry supposedly responded to cries of
"Treason!" by declaring, "If this be treason, make the most of it,"
according to an 1817 biography of Henry by William Wirt, who wrote that
he had confirmed the quote with former President Thomas Jefferson.
(AP, 5/29/08)
1766 Feb 11, The Stamp Act was
declared unconstitutional in Virginia.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1770 Aug 1, William Clark,
American explorer, was born in Charlottesville, VA. He led the Corps of
Discovery with Meriwether Lewis.
(HN, 8/1/00)(MC, 8/1/02)
1773 Feb 9, William Henry
Harrison, the 9th president of the United States (March 4- April 4,
1841), was born in Charles City County, Va.
(HN, 2/9/97)(AP, 2/9/99)(MC, 2/9/02)
1773-1833 John Randolph, state representative from
Virginia. He said of Edward Livingston, a mayor of NY and later a
senator from Louisiana and US Sec. Of State, that he "shines and stinks
like rotten mackerel by moonlight."
(WSJ, 11/4/98, p.A20)
1774 May 28, First Continental
Congress convened in Virginia.
(HN, 5/28/98)
1774 Aug 18, Meriwether Lewis,
American explorer, was born in Charlottesville, VA. He led the Corps of
Discovery with William Clark.
(HN, 8/18/00)(MC, 8/18/02)
1774 Oct 14, Patrick Henry, in
declaring his love of country in a speech during the First Continental
Congress on October 14, 1774, proclaimed, "I am not a Virginian, but an
American."
(HN, 8/2/98)
1775 Mar 23, In a speech to the
Virginia Provincial Convention, assembled at Henrico Church in
Richmond, American revolutionary Patrick Henry made his famous plea for
independence from Britain, saying, "Give me liberty, or give me death!"
(AP, 3/23/97)(AH, 2/06, p.50)
1775 Apr 13, Lord North extended
the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act forbade trade with any
country other than Britain and Ireland.
(HN, 4/13/99)
1775 The 7th Virginia Volunteers
first fought as militia in the War of Independence.
(RC handout, 5/27/96)
1775 Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor
of Virginia, called on local slaves to join the British side to
suppress the American Revolution: “When we win we will free you from
your shackles.” The British issued similar proclamations throughout
their North American colonies and enticed thousands of indentured
servants and slaves, known as Black Loyalists, to the British side.
(MT, summer 2003, p.8)
1776 Jun 12 Virginia's colonial
legislature became the first to adopt a Bill of Rights. The Virginia
Declaration of Rights granted every individual the right to the
enjoyment of life and liberty and to acquire and possess property. The
Virginia document was written by George Mason and was a precursor to
the Declaration of Independence. In 1787 Mason refused to endorse the
Declaration of Independence because it did not include a Bill of Rights.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, Par p.8)(AP, 6/12/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R55)
1776 Dec 5, Phi Beta Kappa was
organized as the first American college scholastic Greek letter
fraternity, at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va. In 2005 the
honor society had some 600,00 members with about 15,000 new members
joining annually.
(AP, 12/5/97)(HN, 12/5/98)(WSJ, 11/4/05, p.W12)
1776 Dec 6, Phi Beta Kappa, the
first scholastic fraternity, was founded at the College of William and
Mary in Williamsburg, Va. [see Dec 5]
(HN, 12/6/00)
1776 Col. George Rogers Clark was
charged by the Virginia Assembly to seize the Northwest
Territory. By 1778, Clark was in control of the land between
Virginia and the Mississippi River—except Fort Sackville.
(HNQ, 7/24/00)
1776-1781 During the Revolutionary War some 100 ships
were scuttled in the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth, Virginia, to
prevent their capture by the British.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.15)
1780 May, The Virginia
continentals surrendered to Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton,
commander of the British Legion, following his victory at Waxhaws, SC.
Tarleton then led the British troops to a massacre of the surrendering
Virginia regulars and militiamen, eliminating the last organized
force in South Carolina. During the course of the Revolutionary War,
Tarleton became one of the most hated men in America.
(HNQ, 9/26/00)(AH, 10/07, p.29)
1781 Jan 5, A British naval
expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va. Arnold led some
1,600 British and Loyalist troops in the destructive raid on Richmond.
(AP, 1/5/98)(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1781 Feb, Gen. Washington,
sensitive to the pleas of the Virginia Governor, ordered Lafayette
south with a picked force of some 1,200 New England and New Jersey
troops.
(http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/laf_va.htm)
1781 May 13, British Gen. William
Phillips died of a fever Petersburg, Va., as his forces confronted the
American army under Lafayette. Phillips had commanded the artillery
battery whose fire had killed Lafayette’s father at the Battle of
Minden (1759).
(ON, 2/09, p.5)
1781 Jul 6, In Virginia the Battle
of Green Spring took place on the Jamestown Peninsula. It was the last
major engagement of the Revolutionary War prior to the Colonial’s final
victory at Yorktown in October.
(LP, Spring 2006, p.60)
1781 Aug 1, English army under
Lord Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, Virginia.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1781 Aug 20, George Washington
began to move his troops south to fight Cornwallis.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1781 Aug 22, Col. William Campbell
(36), West Virginia Patriot militia leader, died of an apparent heart
attack during the siege of Yorktown. Campbell had led his militia in
the Patriot victory on October 7, 1780, at the Battle of King's
Mountain in South Carolina
(ON, 12/07, p.7)
1781 Sep 5, The British fleet
arrived off the Virginia Capes and found 26 French warships in three
straggling lines. Rear Adm. Thomas Graves waited for the French to form
their battle lines and then fought for 5 days. Outgunned and unnerved
he withdrew to New York. The French had some 37 ships and 29,000
soldiers and sailors at Yorktown while Washington had some 11,000 men
engaged. French warships defeated British fleet, trapping Cornwallis in
Yorktown.
(NG, 6/1988, p.763)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)(MC,
9/5/01)
1781 Sep 6, Martha Jefferson
(b.1748), wife of Thomas Jefferson, died.
(www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/mj3.html)
1781 Sep 28, American forces in
the Revolutionary War, backed by a French fleet, began their siege of
Yorktown Heights, Va. 9,000 American forces and 7,000 French troops
began the siege of Yorktown.
(AP, 9/28/97)(MC, 9/28/01)
1781 Oct 6, Americans and French
began the siege of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the last battle of
Revolutionary War.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1781 Oct 9, General George
Washington commenced a bombardment of the Lord Cornwallis's encircled
British forces at Yorktown, Virginia (Battle of Yorktown Revolutionary
War). For eight days Lord Cornwallis endured the Americans heavy
bombardment and had no choice but to surrender his 9,000 troops. It was
considered that Washington had achieved the inconceivable with victory
at Yorktown and that the British were defeated.
(HN, 10/9/99)(MC, 10/9/01)
1781 Oct 19, Major General Lord
Charles Cornwallis, surrounded at Yorktown, Va., by American and French
regiments numbering 17,600 men, surrendered to George Washington and
Count de Rochambeau at Yorktown, Va. Cornwallis surrendered 7,157
troops, including sick and wounded, and 840 sailors, along with 244
artillery pieces. Losses in this battle had been light on both sides.
Cornwallis sent Brig. Gen. Charles O'Hara to surrender his sword. At
Washington's behest, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln accepted it. "The
Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown" was painted by artist John
Trumbull. After conducting an indecisive foray into Virginia, Lt. Gen.
Charles Lord Cornwallis retired to Yorktown on August 2, 1781. On
August 16, General Washington and Maj. Gen. Jean Baptiste Donatien de
Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, began marching their Continental and
French armies from New York to Virginia. The arrival of a French fleet,
and its victory over a British fleet in Chesapeake Bay, sealed the trap.
(NG, 6/1988, p.808)(AP, 10/19/97)(HNPD,
10/19/98)(HN, 10/19/98)
1783 Oct 23, Virginia emancipated
slaves who fought for independence during the Revolutionary War.
(HN, 10/23/98)
1783 Dec 23, George Washington
resigned as commander-in-chief of the Army and retired to his home at
Mount Vernon, Va.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1784 Nov 24, Zachary Taylor, the
12th president of the United States, was born in Orange County, Va.
(AP, 11/24/97)
1785 James Madison wrote the
petition "Memorial and Remonstrance" for circulation in Virginia to
oppose the use of public funds for Christian education.
(WSJ, 9/1/99, p.A24)
1786 Jan 16, The Council of
Virginia passed the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom.
(HN, 1/16/99)(WSJ, 12/14/02, p.W17)
1787 May 29, The "Virginia Plan"
was proposed.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1787 Sep 17, The Constitution of
the United States was completed and signed by a majority of delegates
(12) attending the constitutional convention in Philadelphia. The US
Constitution went into effect on Mar 4, 1789. Clause 3 of Article I,
Section 8 empowered Congress to "regulate Commerce with foreign
nations, among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes." Two of
the signers went on to become presidents of the United States. George
Washington, the president of the Constitutional Convention, and James
Madison both signed the Constitution. The US Constitution is the
world's oldest working Constitution. James Mason of Virginia refused to
sign the document because he thought it made the federal government too
powerful believed that it should contain a Bill of Rights.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/17/97)(HN, 9/17/98)(WUD,
1994, p.314)(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.W17)(HNQ, 5/19/99)(WSJ, 3/31/06, p.A1)
1788 Jun 25, Virginia ratified the
U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 6/25/97)
1790 Mar 1, President Washington
signed a measure authorizing the first US Census. The Connecticut
Compromise was a proposal for two houses in the legislature-one based
on equal representation for each state, the other for population-based
representation-that resolved the dispute between large and small states
at the Constitutional Convention. Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman's
proposal led to the first nationwide census in 1790. The population was
determined to be 3,929,625, which included 697,624 slaves and 59,557
free blacks. The most populous state was Virginia, with 747,610 people
and the most populous city was Philadelphia with 42,444 inhabitants.
(HNQ, 9/17/98)(HNQ, 7/13/01)(AP, 3/1/08)
1790 Mar 29, The 10th president of
the United States, John Tyler, was born in Charles City County, Va. He
was also the first vice-president to succeed to office on the death of
a president.
(AP, 3/29/97)(HN, 3/29/99)
1791 Aug 1, Robert Carter III, a
Virginia plantation owner, freed all 500 of his slaves in the largest
private emancipation in U.S. history.
(HN, 8/1/98)
1791 Dec 15, The US Bill of
Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, took effect
following ratification by Virginia. The First Amendment declared the
separation of church and state and guaranteed freedom of religion,
speech, the press and assembly. In 2007 Anthony Lewis authored “Freedom
for the Thought That We Hate: A biography of the Frist Amendment.”
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)(AP, 12/15/97)(SFC, 1/21/04,
p.D2)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.75)
1792 Oct 7, James Mason (b.1725),
American Revolutionary statesman, died at Gunston Hall Plantation,
situated on the Potomac River some 20 miles south of Washington D.C.
Mason framed the Bill of Rights for the Virginia Convention in June
1776. This was the model for the first part of fellow Virginian Thomas
Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and the basis of the first 10
Amendments to the federal Constitution. In 2006 Jeff Broadwater
authored “George Mason.”
(HNQ,
2/18/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mason)(WSJ, 9/13/06, p.D10)
1792 Nancy Randolph (18) gave
birth to a baby that she claimed was born dead. She said the father was
Theodoric Randolph, who had recently died. Gossip said the father was
Richard Randolph, who was acquitted under defense attorneys Patrick
Henry and John Marshall. Nancy later married Governor Morris of New
York. In 2000 Alan Pell Crawford authored "Unwise Passions," an account
of these events.
(WSJ, 11/21/00, p.A24)
1793 Feb 25, The department heads
of the U.S. government met with President Washington at his Mt.
Vernon home for the first Cabinet meeting on record.
(AP, 2/25/98)(MC, 2/25/02)
1793 Mar 2, Sam Houston, the first
president of the Republic of Texas (1836-38, 1841-44), was born near
Lexington, Va. He fought for Texas' independence from Mexico; President
of Republic of Texas; U.S. Senator; Texas governor
(AP, 3/2/98)(HC, Internet, 2/3/98)(SC, 3/2/02)
1794 Jan 14, Dr. Jessee Bennet of
Edom, Va., performed the 1st successful Cesarean section operation on
his wife.
(MC, 1/14/02)
1797 John Anderson, a Scottish
farm manager, convinced George Washington that distilling whiskey would
make money.
(AM, 9/01, p.80)
1799 Jun 6, Patrick Henry,
American orator, died at Red Hill Plantation, Va. Henry urged the
restoration of the property and rights of Loyalists after the
Revolutionary War. He believed that Loyalists would make good citizens
of the new republic. Henry also bitterly opposed the Constitution as a
threat to the liberties of the people and rights of the states. He
believed that once the war had been won, a central authority was no
longer needed. In 1998 Henry Mayer (d.2000) authored a biography of
Patrick Henry.
(SFC, 7/28/00, p.D5)(HN, 7/12/02)(AP, 6/6/08)
1799 Dec 12, Two days before
his death, George Washington composed his last letter, to Alexander
Hamilton, his aide-de-camp during the Revolution and later his
Secretary of the Treasury. In the letter he urged Hamilton to work for
the establishment of a nationally military academy. Washington wrote
that letter at the end of a long, cold day of snow, sleet and rain that
he had spent out-of-doors. He remained outside for more than five
hours, according to his secretary Tobias Lear, did not change out of
his wet clothes or dry his hair when he returned home.
(HNQ, 10/25/02)
1799 Dec 14, George Washington
(66), the first president of the United States (1789-97), died at his
Mount Vernon, Va., home at age 67. He died from the incompetence of
physicians who bled him to death while fighting pneumonia. Richard
Brookhiser authored "Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington."
The Washingtons at this time had 317 slaves. His 5 stills in Virginia
turned out some 12,000 gallons of corn whiskey a year.
(A&IP, ESM, p.16)(AP, 12/14/97)(WSJ, 11/6/98,
p.W15)(SFEC, 5/2/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 12/11/99, p.B6)(MC, 12/14/01)
1799 Dec 18, George Washington's
body was interred at Mount Vernon.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1800 Oct 2, Nat Turner, slave and
the property of Benjamin Turner, was born in Southampton county, Va. He
was sold in 1831 to Joseph Travis from Jerusalem, Southampton county,
Va.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html)
1800 Oct 7, Gabriel, slave revolt
leader in Virginia, was hanged. Gabriel Prosser had mounted a slave
rebellion.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)(MC, 10/7/01)
1800 Dec, In Virginia Martha
Washington set all her slaves free.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, Z1 p.8)
1802 Jan 29, John Beckley of
Virginia was appointed 1st Librarian of Congress.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1802 Oct 28, The 34-gun Spanish
frigate Juno, enroute back to Spain from Mexico [Puerto Rico], ran into
a storm off the coast of Virginia. Captain Don Juan Ignacio Bustillo
perished along with 425 men, women and children and an estimated
half-billion dollars in treasure. A boy from the wreck survived on
Assateague Island and was named James Alone. He later changed his name
to James Lunn. Many Chincoteague islanders later traced their descent
to James.
(USAT, 5/7/98, p.9A)(WSJ, 7/17/98, p.A1)(SFC,
8/14/00, p.A3)
1802 James Callender, an
English-born journalist, published a report in the Richmond, Va.,
Recorder about Thomas Jefferson and his relationship with the slave
Sally Hemmings [Hemings]. In 1997 Annette Gordon-Reed published:
"Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, an American Controversy." DNA
tests of descendants in 1998 indicated that Jefferson fathered at least
one child with Hemmings, her youngest son Eston Hemmings in 1808. Dr.
Eugene Foster, author of the DNA report, later said the DNA tests
showed that any one of 8 Jefferson males could have fathered Eston. In
2008 Annette Gordon-Reed authored “The Hemmingses of Monticello: An
American Family.”
(WSJ, 9/23/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/29/98, p.A6)(SFEC,
11/1/98, p.A1,7)(WSJ, 11/2/98, p.B11)(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.W15)(SFC,
1/27/00, p.A3)(SSFC, 10/19/08, Books p.4)
1805 May 1, The state of Virginia
passed a law requiring all freed slaves to leave the state, or risk
either imprisonment or deportation.
(HN, 5/1/99)
1807 Jan 19, Robert E. Lee, the
commander-in-chief of the Confederate Armies, was born in
Stratford, Va.
(AP, 1/19/98)
1807 May 22, The treason trial of
former VP Aaron Burr began in Richmond, Va. [see Sep 1]
(PCh, 1992, p.367)(MC, 5/22/02)
1807 Jun 24, A grand jury in
Richmond, Va., indicted former Vice President Aaron Burr on charges of
treason and high misdemeanor. He was later acquitted.
(AP, 6/24/07)
1807 Aug 3, Former Vice President
Aaron Burr went on trial before a federal court in Richmond, Va.,
charged with treason. He was acquitted less than a month later.
(AP, 8/3/07)
1811 Mar 20, George Caleb Bingham
(d.1879), Missouri painter, was born in Virginia. He paintings included
"Fur Traders on the Missouri."
(WUD, 1994,
p.149)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Caleb_Bingham)
1814 Aug 19, British forces landed
on the Patuxent River and routed the Americans in the Battle of
Bladensburg, and then marched to Washington.
(HNQ, 12/10/00)
1807 Sep 1, Former Vice President
Aaron Burr was found innocent of treason. [see 1806] Aaron Burr had
been arrested in Mississippi for complicity in a plot to establish a
Southern empire in Louisiana and Mexico.
(AP, 9/1/97)(HN, 9/1/99)
1816 Dec 4, James Monroe of
Virginia was elected the fifth president of the United States.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1819 Thomas Jefferson founded the
Univ. of Virginia.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.F2)
1821 May 3, The
Richmond [Virginia] Light Artillery was organized.
(RC handout, 5/27/96)
1826 Apr 9, Chatham Roberdeau
Wheat was born in Alexandria, Va. He studied law at the University of
Nashville and then served in the 1st Tennessee Cavalry as a lieutenant
during the Mexican War. He became a Confederate commander of the 1st
Louisiana Special Battalion in the Civil War, also known as Wheat's
Tigers.
(HN, 4/9/00)
1826 Jul 4, Thomas Jefferson, the
nation's third president, died deeply in debt at age 83 at one o'clock
in the afternoon and was buried near Charlottesville, Virginia. He was
the founder of the Univ. of Virginia and wrote the state’s statute of
religious freedom. In 1997 Joseph J. Ellis won the National Book Award
in nonfiction for "American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson."
"Nothing gives one person so much of an advantage over another as to
remain unruffled in all circumstances."
(A&IP, Miers, p.29)(SFEC, 6/29/97, BR p.5)(AP,
7/4/97) (SFC, 4/29/98, p.A6)(SFEC, 10/25/98, Z1 p.12)(IB, Internet,
12/7/98)(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A9)
1827 Jan 15, At Monticello 130
slaves and other possessions of Thomas Jefferson were sold at auction.
Sally Hemmings and 5 members of the Hemings family were freed shortly
thereafter.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A9)
1831 Aug 21, Nat Turner led a
rebellion in Southampton county, Va. This became known as "Nat Turner's
Rebellion" or the "Southampton Slave Revolt." Turner and about seven
followers murdered 55 white people, including the entire family of his
owners, the Joseph Travis's. Turner had been taught to read by the
Travis children and his studies of the bible led him to have visions of
insurrection. Turner was later executed. A 1998 play by Robert O’Hara
"Insurrection: Holding History" centered on the event.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html)(SFC,
1/16/98, p.D1)(AP, 8/21/07)
1831 Sep 9, Eleven men, accused
and convicted for participating in the revolt led by Nat Turner, were
hanged. The death sentence for 7 others was commuted by the governor to
"transportation," i.e. sale outside the state.
(ON, 10/99, p.10)
1831 Oct 31, Nat Turner, rebel
slave, was caught by Mr. Benjamin Phipps and locked up in Jerusalem,
Va. Thomas Gray, his court appointed attorney, spent 3 days talking to
Turner and compiled his notes into "The Confessions of Nat Turner,"
which were published in 1969.
(ON, 10/99, p.10)
1831 Nov 5, Nat Turner, rebel
slave, was tried in Southampton county, Va.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html)
1831 Nov 11, Nat Turner was hanged
and skinned in Southampton county, Va. Hysteria surrounded this
rebellion and over 200 slaves, some as far away as North Carolina, were
murdered by whites in fear of a generalized uprising. A martyr to the
anti-slavery cause, Turner's actions had the adverse effect of
virtually ending all abolitionist activities in the south before the
Civil War.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html)(HN,
11/11/98)
1832 Uriah Phillips Levy, a US
naval lieutenant, commissioned a statue of Thomas Jefferson by Paris
sculptor Piere-Jean David D’Anger. In 1847 Pres. Polk set the statue in
front of the white House, where it stood for 27 years.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.D8)
1834 Uriah Phillips Levy (d.1862),
purchased Monticello. The levy family owned the home for the next 9
decades. In 1923 it was transferred to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.D8)
1836 May 16, Edgar Allan Poe (27)
married Virginia Clem (13) in Richmond, Virginia.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.67)
1838 Aug 18, Six US Navy ships
departed Hampton Roads, Va., led by Lt. Charles Wilkes on a 3-year
mission called the US South Seas Exploring Expedition, the "U.S. Ex.
Ex." The mission proved Antarctica to be a continent. In 2003 Nathaniel
Philbrick authored "Sea of Glory," an account of the expedition.
(NG, 10/1988, Geographica)(ON, 3/00, p.6)(WSJ,
11/12/03, p.D12)
1839 In the US the Virginia
Military Institute (VMI) for young men was founded in Lexington,
Virginia.
(WSJ, 6/27/96, p.B7)(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A20)
1850 A building census in Norfolk,
Virginia indicated that there were 10,000 18th and early 19th century
structures. Of these only a handful survive.
(Hem. 1/95, p. 69)
1851 Sep 13, Walter Reed (d.1902),
U.S. Army doctor, was born in Gloucester County, Va. In 1900 he went to
Cuba and verified that yellow fever was caused by a mosquito.
(HN, 9/13/98)(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.B1)(AP, 9/13/02)
1855 Yellow Fever broke out in
Norfolk, Va., after a steamship carrying mosquitoes in its cisterns
docked from the West Indies.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, Par p.4)
1856 Apr 5, Booker T. Washington,
Black American educator, was born in Franklin County, Va. The former
slave later founded the Tuskegee Institute. Booker Taliaferro
Washington later became the 1st black on US stamp.
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 4/5/99)(MC, 4/5/02)
1856 Dec 28, Woodrow Wilson, 28th
president of the United States (1912-1921), who brought the country
into World War I, was born in Staunton, Va. He won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1919. "The American Revolution was a beginning, not a
consummation."
(AP, 12/28/97)(HN, 12/28/98)(AP, 7/2/99)(MC,
12/28/01)
1858 Jan 28, John Brown organized
a plan to raid the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. [see Oct 16, 1859]
(MC, 1/28/02)(ON, 7/02, p.7)
1858 Feb 1, John Brown went to see
Frederick Douglass in Rochester and told him of his plan to steal
weapons at Harper’s Ferry, Va.
(ON, 7/02, p.6)
1858 Aug 24, Richmond "Daily
Dispatch" reported 90 blacks arrested for learning.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1858 A monument to George
Washington was completed in Richmond’s Capitol Square.
(AH, 10/04, p.58)
1859 Oct 16, On Sunday evening
radical abolitionist John Brown and a tiny army of five black and 13
white supporters seized the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia
(now West Virginia). Convinced that local slaves would rise up behind
him, Brown planned to establish a new republic of fugitives in the
Appalachian Mountains. Brown's plans immediately went awry when the
expected slave rebellion did not happen and the townspeople trapped
Brown's men inside the engine house at the Federal arsenal. Within 24
hours, Brown and his four surviving men were captured by a force of 90
U.S. Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, pictured
here. Brown, quickly convicted of criminal conspiracy and treason and
sentenced to death, was hanged on December 2, 1859. As he went to the
gallows, Brown handed a note to one of his guards: "I, John Brown, am
now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be
purged away but with blood." The incident is the backdrop for George
MacDonald Fraser’s novel "Flashman and the Angel of the Lord." Brown
was convicted and executed at Charlestown for treason against the state
of Virginia.
(WSJ, 4/10/95, p. A-16)(AP, 10/16/97)(HNPD,
10/16/98)(HNQ, 2/3/00)
1859 Dec 2, John Brown, US
abolitionist, was hanged for his raid on Harper’s Ferry the previous
October. Brown was convicted and executed at Charlestown for treason
against the state of Virginia after his unsuccessful October 16-18 raid
at Harpers Ferry. Six of Brown‘s men were later convicted and hanged.
In 1910 Oswald Garrison Villard authored an account of Brown’s life. In
1972 Richard O. Boyer authored "The Legend of John Brown." In 1998
Russell Banks published his novel "Cloudsplitter," narrated by Owen
Brown (1824-1889), the 3rd son of John Brown. In 2005 David S. Reynolds
authored “John Brown: Abolitionist.”
(SFEC, 2/22/98, BR p.8)(ON, 7/02, p.8)(WSJ, 4/19/05,
p.D8)(SSFC, 4/24/05, p.B1)
1860 Apr 27, Thomas J Jackson (the
future "Stonewall") was assigned to command Harpers Ferry.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1860 Gov. John Letcher took office.
(AH, 6/02, p.22)
1861 Feb 18, Jefferson F. Davis
was inaugurated as the Confederacy’s provisional president at a
ceremony held in Montgomery, Ala., where the Confederate constitutional
convention was held. Davis was sworn in on Feb 22 in Virginia.
(AP, 2/18/98)(HN, 2/18/98)(AH, 10/04, p.60)
1861 Feb 22, Jefferson Davis was
sworn in as the permanent president of the Confederate States of
America on Washington’s birthday. Davis was sworn in as president of
the Confederacy in Richmond, Va., following his inauguration in Alabama
on Feb 18.
(HN, 2/22/98)(AH, 10/04, p.60)
1861 Apr 17, The Virginia State
Convention voted to secede from the Union. Virginia became the eighth
state to secede from the Union.
(AP, 4/17/97)(HN, 4/17/98)
1861 Apr 18, Battle of Harpers
Ferry, VA.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1861 Apr 20, Robert E. Lee
resigned from U.S. Army.
(HN, 4/20/98)
1861 Apr 20, Battle of Norfolk,
VA. [see Apr 21]
(MC, 4/20/02)
1861 Apr 21, The Gosport Navy Yard
on the Elizabeth River near Norfolk was burned and U.S. Navy ships
destroyed by Federal troops carrying out the orders of Commodore Hiram
Paulding. With the Confederate noose tightening around Gosport
following Virginia‘s secession, and Union defenders dispatched by
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles unable to reach the yard, Paulding
determined he must destroy and abandon the installation. Considered the
most extensive and valuable naval shipyard in the Union, the loss of
Gosport and 10 ships docked there, including the Merrimack—later
refitted by the rebels and known as the CSS Virginia—was called by
Horace Greeley as "The most shameful, cowardly, disastrous performance
that stains the annals of the American Navy."
(HNQ, 2/16/01)
1861 Apr 22, Robert E. Lee was
named commander of Virginia forces.
(HN, 4/22/98)
1861 Apr 23, Robert E. Lee assumed
command of the military and naval forces of Virginia, which he
organized thoroughly before they were absorbed by the Confederacy.
(www.us-civilwar.com/lee.htm)
1861 May 5, CS troops abandon
Alexandria, VA.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1861 May 8, Richmond, Va, was
named the capital of the Confederacy.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1861 May 18, Battle of Sewall's
Point VA was the 1st Federal offense against South.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1861 May 21, The Confederate
Congress, meeting in Montgomery, Ala., voted to move the capital of the
Confederacy from Montgomery to Richmond, Va.
(AP, 5/21/07)
1861 May 23, Virginia citizens
voted 3 to 1 in favor of secession, becoming the last Confederate state.
(HN, 5/23/98)(MC, 5/23/02)
1861 May 24, Shortly after Union
troops quietly occupied Alexandria, Va., 24-year-old Colonel Elmer E.
Ellsworth and a handful of friends from the 11th New York Regiment
impulsively entered the Marshall Hotel to forcibly remove a Confederate
flag from the roof. Hotel proprietor James W. Jackson shot and mortally
wounded Ellsworth as he descended the stairs, flag in hand. Jackson
himself was then shot by a Union soldier. Only weeks after the outbreak
of the Civil War, both the North and the South had received the first
martyrs to their respective causes.
(HN, 5/24/99)
1861 Jun 1, The first skirmish in
the Civil War was at Fairfax Court House, Arlington Mills, Va.
(DTnet, 6/1/97)(HN, 6/1/98)
1861 Jun 3, In the first Civil War
land battle, Union forces defeated Confederates at Philippi, in Western
Virginia.
(HN, 6/3/98)
1861 Jun 10, The Virginia village
of Big Bethel became the site of the 1st major land battle of the Civil
War. Private Henry L. Wyatt was the 1st Confederate soldier killed in a
Civil War battle. 18 Union soldiers were killed.
(AH, 10/01, p.50)
1861 Jun 16, Battle of Vienna,
VA., and Secessionville, SC (James Island).
(MC, 6/16/02)
1861 Jun 19, Loyal Virginians, in
what would soon be West Virginia, elected Francis Pierpoint as their
provisional governor.
(HN, 6/19/98)
1861 Jun 24, Federal gunboats
attacked Confederate batteries at Mathias Point, Virginia.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1861 Jul 13, Battle of Corrick's
Ford, VA (Carrick's Ford): Union army took total control of western
Virginia.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1861 Jul 14, Gen McDowell advanced
toward Fairfax Courthouse, VA, with 40,000 troops.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1861 Jul 17, At Manassas, VA, Gen
Beauregard requested reinforcements for his 22,000 men and Gen Johnston
was ordered to Manassas.
(MC, 7/17/02)
1861 Jul 18, Union and Confederate
troops skirmished at Blackburn's Ford, Virginia, in a prelude to the
Battle of Bull Run.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1861 Jul 20, The Congress of the
Confederate States began holding sessions in Richmond, Va.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1861 Jul 20, In the first major
battle of the Civil War [see June 10], Confederate forces repelled an
attempt by the Union Army to turn their flank in Virginia. The battle
becomes known by the Confederates as Manassas, while the Union called
it Bull Run. It was fought on Judith Carter Henry’s farm.
(HN, 7/20/98)(HNQ, 5/10/02)
1861 Jul 21, In the first major
battle of the Civil War, Confederate forces repelled an attempt by the
Union Army to turn their flank in Virginia. The battle became known by
the Confederates as Manassas, while the Union called it Bull Run. The
33rd Virginia Infantry held Henry House Hill at the first Battle of
Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, resulting in a Confederate victory.
This was the spot from which Jackson took on the title of "Stonewall"
and his brigade the "Stonewall Brigade." Union forces had 3,000 men
killed, wounded, or missing in action while the Confederates suffered
2,000 casualties. Bernard Bee coined the nickname associated with
Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. At the Battle of
First Manassas, it is General Bee who supposedly rallied his troops by
calling out, "Look! There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Rally
to the Virginians!" Though there is some controversy about exactly what
was said, when Bee said it, and what exactly he meant by it, the words
helped create a legend. Bee couldn‘t explain further; he was mortally
wounded during the battle and died the next day. Brig. Gen. Irvin
McDowell was in command of the Union forces at the First Battle of Bull
Run (First Manassas).
(HT, 3/97, p.48)(AP, 7/21/97)(HN, 7/21/99)(HN,
1/18/00)(HNQ, 7/30/01)(MC, 7/21/02)
1861 Jul 27, Battle of Mathias
Point, VA. Rebel forces repelled a Federal landing.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1861 Aug 1, Sally Louisa Tompkins
opened Robertson Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. She ceased operating
the hospital on June 13, 1865.
(HNQ, 5/17/01)
1861 Sep 9, Sally Louisa Tompkins
(b.1833) was commissioned as a Confederate captain of cavalry. Born
into a wealthy and altruistic family in coastal Mathews County,
Virginia, Tompkins was destined for a life of philanthropy. After
moving to Richmond, she spent much of her time and a considerable
portion of her fortune assisting causes she considered worthy. With the
onset of civil war, she labored on the behalf of the South's wounded
soldiers, and for this she became the first and only woman to receive
an officer's commission in the Confederate army.
(HNQ, 5/17/01)
1861 Sep 10, Confederates at
Carnifex Ferry, Virginia, fell back after being attacked by Union
troops. There were 170 casualties. The action was instrumental in
helping preserve western Virginia for the Union.
(HN, 9/10/98)(MC, 9/10/01)
1861 Oct 11, Battle of Dumfries,
Va., at Quantico Creek.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1861 Oct 21, Battle of Ball's
Bluff, Va., was a disastrous Union defeat which sparked Congressional
investigations.
(HN, 10/21/98)
1861 Oct 24, West Virginia seceded
from Virginia.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1861 Nov 18, The first provisional
meeting of the Confederate Congress was held in Richmond.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1861 Dec 6, Union General George
G. Meade led a foraging expedition to Gunnell’s farm near Dranesville,
Va.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1861 Virginia seceded from the
Union and moved troops to take over National Capital. Federal troops
were rushed down the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal and arrived in time to
stop Confederate troops from taking Washington D.C. The Wheeling
Conventions declared Virginia’s secession from the Union
unconstitutional and named Francis H. Pierpont governor of the
Reorganized Government of Virginia, which was quickly recognized by the
federal government. At the outbreak of the Civil War, representatives
of Virginia’s western counties had gathered in the city of Wheeling (as
the temporary capital) to form the Reorganized Government of Virginia.
In 1862 a state constitution was adopted by the convention and on June
20, 1863, West Virginia was admitted as the 35th state in the Union.
(NG, Sept. 1939, J. Maloney p.379)(HNQ, 6/16/99)
c1861-1865 Walt Whitman went to Virginia during the
Civil War to nurse his brother George, who had been wounded in battle.
Afterward, Whitman volunteered in army hospitals in Washington.
(HN, 9/5/00)
1862 Jan 7, Battle of Manassas
Junction, VA.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1862 Jan 18, John Tyler (71), 10th
president of the United States (1841-1845), died and was buried at
Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. He drank a mint julep every morning
for breakfast. Tyler had joined the Confederacy after his presidency
and was designated a "sworn enemy of the United States."
(AP, 1/18/98)(SFEC, 11/15/98, Z1 p.10)(SFEC,
12/20/98, Z1 p.8)(HN, 1/18/99)
1862 Feb 22, Jefferson Davis was
inaugurated president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. for the
second time.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1862 Mar 2, Gen’l. Frederick W.
Lander (b.1821), transcontinental engineer and Union General, died of
“congestion of the brain” at Paw Paw, Virginia. He was the chief
engineer of the Central Overland route. In 2000 Gary L. Ecalbarger
authored “Frederick W. Lander: The Great Natural American Soldier.”
(www.picturehistory.com/find/p/16832/mcms.html)(ACC,
2004)
1862 Mar 8, The ironclad CSS
Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack) rammed and sank the USS Cumberland
and inflicted heavy damage on the USS Congress, both frigates, off
Newport News, Va. Popular during the Crimean War, the floating battery
was revived by hard-pressed Confederates.
(AP, 3/8/07)(HN, 3/8/98)
1862 Mar 9, The ironclads, CSS
Virginia, (formerly Merrimac) of the South, battled the USS Monitor,
designed by John Ericsson, in their first battle for five hours to a
draw at Hampton Roads, Va. The story is told by James Tertius deKay in
his 1998 book “Monitor: The Story of the Legendary Civil War Ironclad
and the Man Whose Invention Changed the Course of History.”
(SFEC, 1/18/98, Par p.16)(AP, 3/9/98)(HN, 3/9/98)
1862 Mar 23, Battle of Kernstown,
Va., began. Winchester, Va., was another embattled town. Confederate
General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson faced his only defeat at the Battle
of Kernstown, Va., as he began his Valley Campaign.
(HN, 3/23/98)(HN, 3/23/99)(SS, 3/23/02)
1862 Mar 28, US Civil War skirmish
at Bealeton Station, Virginia.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1862 Apr 1, Shenandoah Valley
campaign, Jackson's Battle of Woodstock, VA.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1862 Apr 4, Battle of Yorktown,
Virginia, began as Union gen. George B. McClellan closed in on
Richmond. This began the Peninsular Campaign aimed at capturing
Richmond.
(HN, 4/4/99)(MC, 4/4/02)
1862 Apr 5, Siege of Yorktown,
VA., continued.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1862 May 4, Battle at
Williamsburg, Virginia. [see May 5]
(MC, 5/4/02)
1862 May 4, At Yorktown, VA.,
McClellan halted his troop before town as it was full of armed land
mines left by CS Brig. general Gabrial Rains.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1862 May 5, Battle of Williamsburg
commenced as part of the Peninsular Campaign. Confederate Captain
Charles Bruce kept his father apprised of conditions during the crucial
Peninsula campaign.
(HN, 5/5/98)
1862 May 7, At the Battle of
Eltham's Landing in Virginia, Confederate troops struck Union troops in
the Shenandoah Valley.
(HN, 5/7/99)
1862 May 8, General 'Stonewall'
Jackson repulsed the Federals at the Battle of McDowell, in the
Shenandoah Valley Campaign.
(HN, 5/8/99)
1862 May 11, The Confederates
scuttled the CSS Virginia off Norfolk, Virginia.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1862 May 15, The Union ironclad
Monitor and the gunboat Galena fired on Confederate troops at the
Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Virginia.
(HN, 5/15/99)
1862 May 23, Stonewall Jackson
took Fort Royal, Virginia, in the Valley Campaign.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1862 May 25, Battle of Winchester,
VA.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1862 May 27, Battle of Hanover
Court House, VA (Slash Church, Peake's Station).
(MC, 5/27/02)
1862 May 30, Battle of Front
Royal, VA.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1862 May 31, At the Battle of Fair
Oaks, also known as the Battle of Seven Pines, Gen. McClellan defeated
the Confederates outside of Richmond. Confederate Gen. Joe Johnston was
injured and evacuated to Richmond. Maj. Gen. G.W. Smith took temporary
command.
(HN,
5/31/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fair_Oaks)
1862 Jun 1, Confederate Pres.
Jefferson Davis appointed General Robert E. Lee as commander of the
Army of Northern Virginia, following the injury a day earlier of
General Joe Johnston at Seven Pines (Fair Oaks).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fair_Oaks)
1862 Jun 8, The Army of the
Potomac defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Cross Keys,
Virginia, during the Peninsula Campaign.
(HN, 6/8/98)
1862 Jun 9, Battle of Port
Republic, last of 5 battles in Jackson's Valley camp.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1862 Jun 25, The first day of the
Seven Days Campaign began with fighting at Oak Grove, Virginia, with
Robert E. Lee commanding the Confederate Army for the first time.
(HN, 6/25/98)
1862 Jun 26, General Robert E. Lee
attacked McClellan's line at Mechanicsville of day 2 of the Seven Days
battle near Richmond, Va.
(HN, 6/26/98)(MC, 6/26/02)
1862 Jun 27, Confederates broke
through the Union lines at the Battle of Gaines’ Mill on the 3rd day of
the Seven Days Battle in Virginia.
(HN, 6/27/98)
1862 Jun 28, At Garnett’s and
Golding’s farms, fighting continued for a 4th day between Union and
Confederate forces during the Seven Days in Virginia.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1862 Jun 29, Union forces
continued to fall back from Richmond, but put up a fight at the Battle
of Savage’s Station on day 5 of the 7 Days Battle.
(HN, 6/29/98)(MC, 6/29/02)
1862 Jun 30, The Confederates
failed to coordinate their attacks at the Battle of White Oak Swamp,
allowing the Union forces to retreat to Malvern Hill in Virginia on Day
6 of the 7 Days-Battle. This battle in Virginia was alternately known
as the battle of White Oak Swamp, Frayser’s Farm, Glendale, Charles
City Cross Roads, Nelson’s Farm, New Market Cross Roads and Turkey Bend!
(HN, 6/30/98)(HNQ, 3/5/01)(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1862 Jun, Some 5,000 wounded
soldiers came into Richmond after the Battle of Seven Pines.
(AH, 6/02, p.23)
1862 Jul 1, In day 7 of the 7 Days
Battle Union artillery stopped a Confederate attack at Malvern Hill,
Virginia. Casualties totaled: US 15,249 and CS 17,583.
(HN, 7/1/98)(MC, 7/1/02)
1862 Jul 16, Two Union soldiers
and their servant ransacked a house and raped a slave in Sperryville,
Virginia.
(HN, 7/16/99)
1862 Jul, Another 10 thousand
wounded men came into Richmond along with thousands of Federal
prisoners.
(AH, 6/02, p.23)
1862 Aug 2, Union General John
Pope captured Orange Court House, Virginia.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1862 Aug 9, At Cedar Mountain,
Virginia, Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson repelled an attack by
Union forces. Gen Charles S. Winder was killed
(HN, 8/9/98)(MC, 8/9/02)
1862 Aug 25, Union and Confederate
troops skirmished at Waterloo Bridge, Virginia, during the Second Bull
Run Campaign.
(HN, 8/25/98)
1862 Aug 26, Confederate General
Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson encircled the Union Army under General John
Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
(HN, 8/26/99)
1862 Aug 27, As the Second Battle
of Bull Run raged, Confederate soldiers attacked Loudoun County,
Virginia.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1862 Aug 28, The Battle of
Thoroughfare Gap, VA.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1862 Aug 30, Union forces were
defeated by the Confederates at the Second Battle of Bull Run in
Manassas, Va.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1862 Sep 1, Battle at Chantilly
(Ox Hill), Virginia, left 2100 casualties.
(AM, 11/04, p.24)
1862 Sep 1, Oliver Tilden of the
Bronx was killed in the Civil War in Virginia.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1862 Oct 11, The Confederate
Congress in Richmond passed a draft law allowing anyone owning 20 or
more slaves to be exempt from military service. This law confirmed many
southerners opinion that they were in a ‘rich man’s war and a poor
man’s fight.’
(HN, 10/11/98)
1862 Oct 17, Battle of Leetown and
Thoroughfare Gap, Va.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1862 Dec 11, Union General
Burnside occupied Fredricksburg and prepared to attack the Confederates
under Robert E. Lee.
(HN, 12/11/98)
1862 Dec 13, Confederate forces
dealt Union troops a major defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Va.
The Battle of Fredricksburg ended at Marye’s Heights with the bloody
slaughter of Union troops, while Confederate President Davis reviewed
Braxton Bragg’s troops at Murfreesboro, Tenn. Burnside, newly appointed
commander of an army of over 120,000, planned to cross the Rappahannock
River and advance on the Confederate capital of Richmond. Some 78,000
troops under Confederate General Robert E. Lee took a strong position
on the high ground near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Burnside’s assault
resulted in over 12,500 casualties for the Union compared with about
5,000 for the entrenched Confederates. Burnside was relieved of command
the following month.
(WUD, 1994, p.565)(AP, 12/13/97)(HN, 12/13/98)(HNQ,
10/14/00)
1862 Dec 26-28, Battle of
Dumfries, Va.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1862-1863 Smallpox broke out in Richmond.
(AH, 6/02, p.23)
1863 Jan 22, In an attempt to out
flank Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, General Ambrose
Burnside led his army on a march north of Fredericksburg, but foul
weather bogged his army down in what became known as "Mud March."
(HN, 1/22/99)
1863 Mar 17, The Battle of Kelly's
Ford, Va., was fought.
(http://americancivilwar.com/statepic/va/va029.html)
1863 Mar 31, Battle of Grand
Gulf, MS & Dinwiddie Court House, VA.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1863 Mar, A foot of snow fell in
Richmond.
(AH, 6/02, p.23)
1863 Apr 2, In Richmond, Va., a
large crowd of hungry women from one of Richmond's working-class
neighborhoods demanded bread from Governor John Letcher. When the
governor did not respond favorably to the rioters' demands, the women
marched down Main Street, shouting "Bread" as they made their way to
the commissary, where they smashed store windows and grabbed food and
anything else they could get their hands on. Not until the mob faced
President Davis and his troops did the rampage end. Varina Howell Davis
wrote an account of the riots after her husbands death in 1889.
(HNQ, 5/8/02)(AH, 6/02, p.24)
1863 Apr 11, Battle of Suffolk, VA
(Norfleet House).
(MC, 4/11/02)
1863 Apr 27, The Army of the
Potomac began marching on Chancellorsville.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1863 May 1, The beginning of the
Battle of Chancellorsville, Va., in the East and the Battle Port Gibson
in the west. The new Union commander, ‘Fighting Joe’ Hooker, planned to
encircle Robert E. Lee at the Virginia crossroads hamlet of
Chancellorsville.
(HN, 5/1/98)
1863 May 2, The Confederates
smashed Hooker's flank and won a smashing victory at Chancellorsville,
Virginia. Confederate Gen’l. Stonewall Jackson was shot by friendly
fire as he returned to his lines; he died eight days later. Captain J.
Keith Boswell, an officer with Jackson, was also shot and killed.
(HT, 3/97, p.48)(AP, 5/2/99)(HN, 5/2/99)
1863 May 3, In Virginia the Battle
of Chancellorsville raged for a second day, as Confederate General
Robert E. Lee parried Union General Joseph T. Hooker's thrusts. [see
May 1-2]
(HN, 5/3/00)
1863 Jun 5, Battle of Franklin's
Crossing, VA (Deep Run).
(MC, 6/5/02)
1863 Jun 9, At the Battle of
Brandy Station in Virginia, Union and Confederate cavalries clashed.
This was the largest cavalry battle in the Civil War. Confederate Gen.
Rooney Lee was wounded in the thigh during the battle and was captured
by a Union raiding party several days later while convalescing. He was
exchanged on March 1, 1864, and returned to the war in Va.
(HN, 6/9/01)(AH, 2/06, p.72)
1863 Jun 13, Confederate forces on
their way to Gettysburg clashed with Union troops at the Second Battle
of Winchester, Virginia.
(HN, 6/13/98)
1863 Jun 15, The 2nd battle at
Winchester, Va., ended in Federal defeat with 1350 casualties.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1863 Jun 17, Battle of Aldie:
Confederates failed to drive back Union in Virginia.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1863 Jun 19, Battle at Middleburg
Virginia (100+ casualties).
(DTnet, 6/19/97)
1863 Jun 24, Planning an invasion
of Pennsylvania, Lee's army crossed the Potomac.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1863 Jun 27, There was a skirmish
at Fairfax Courthouse in Virginia.
(MC, 6/27/02)
1863 Jul 24, Battle at Battle
Mountain, Virginia.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1863 Jul 28, Confederate John
Mosby began a series of attacks against General Meade's Army of the
Potomac as it tried to pursue General Robert E. Lee in Virginia's
Shenandoah Valley. Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby was known as "The
Gray Ghost." The rather ordinary looking Mosby led his Partisan Rangers
in guerilla warfare operations that continually confounded Union
commanders in the Piedmont region of Virginia. Learn more about Mosby‘s
Confederacy in Faquier and Loudoun counties.
(HN, 7/28/98)(HNQ, 7/15/00)
1863 Sep 1, 6th Ohio Cavalry
ambush at Barbees Crossroads, Virginia.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1863 Sep 13, The Loudoun County
Rangers routed a company of Confederate cavalry at Catoctin Mountain in
Virginia.
(HN, 9/13/99)
1863 Oct 9, Battle of Brady
Station, Va. (Culpeper Court House, Bristoe Station).
(MC, 10/9/01)
1863 Nov 7, The Battle of
Rappahannock Station, Va., was fought.
(http://www2.cr.nps.gov/abpp/battles/va043.htm)
1863 Nov 27, Battle of Payne's
Farm, Va.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1863 Dec 12, Orders were given in
Richmond that no more supplies from the Union should be received by
Federal prisoners.
(HN, 12/12/98)
1864 Feb 28-Mar 3, A skirmish took
place at Albemarle County, Virginia (Burton's Ford).
(MC, 2/28/02)
1864 Feb 29, Union Brig. Gen.
Judson Kilpatrick split his forces at the Rapidan River ordering Col.
Ulric Dahlgren to lead 500 men his men to Goochland Court House, while
the remainder followed Kilpatrick in his raid on Richmond.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1864 May 5, The Battle of
Wilderness began as Robert E. Lee caught U.S. Grant's forces in the
Virginia woods. It was the first in a series of clashes fought as
Grant's army advanced on Richmond, Va. During the close range fighting
in the dense woods of Virginia, forest fires broke out, killing many
wounded soldiers. While the battle ended as a tactical draw, Lee was
unable to halt Grant's progress toward Richmond.
(HN, 5/5/98)(HNPD, 5/5/99)
1864 May 5, Battle between
Confederate & Union ships at mouth of Roanoke.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1864 May 6, In the second day of
the Battle of Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and
Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet
was wounded by his own men.
(HN, 5/6/99)
1864 May 7, In Virginia the Battle
of Wilderness ended, with heavy losses to both sides. Union losses were
17,666; CSA-7,500. In 2002 the US federal government bought the
465-acre tract of the battle site and incorporated it into
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania Military Park.
(HN, 5/7/98)(AARP, 7/05, p.12)
1864 May 8, Union troops arrived
at Spotsylvania Court House to find the Confederates waiting for them.
(HN, 5/8/99)
1864 May 9, Union General John
Sedgwick was shot and killed by a confederate sharpshooter during
fighting at Spotsylvania, Va. His last words before getting hit were
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
(HN, 5/9/99)
1864 May 9, Battle of Cloyd's Mt.
and Swift Creek, VA (Drewry’s Bluff, Ft. Darling).
(MC, 5/9/02)
1864 May 10, Battles at
Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia. [see May 8]
(MC, 5/10/02)
1864 May 12, The Battle of
Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia, was fought.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)
1864 May 12, Battle of Todd's
Tavern, VA (Sheridan's Raid).
(MC, 5/12/02)
1864 May 15, At Battle of New
Market, Virginia, Military Institute cadets repelled a Union attack.
(HN, 5/15/99)
1864 May 18, The fighting at
Spotsylvania in Virginia, reached its peak at the Bloody Angle.
(HN, 5/18/99)
1864 May 19, The last engagement
in a series of battles of Spotsylvania was fought. Following the
American Civil War Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864, General Ulysses S.
Grant said, "The world has never seen so bloody and so protracted a
battle as the one being fought and I hope never will again."
(HN, 5/19/98)(HNQ, 2/12/99)
1864 May 19, Battle of Port
Walthall Junction, VA (Bermuda Hundred).
(MC, 5/19/02)
1864 May 20, Battle at Ware Bottom
Church, Virginia, killed or injured 1,400.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1864 May 20, Spotsylvania-campaign
ended after 10,920 were killed or injured person.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1864 May 22, Battle of North Anna
River, VA.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1864 May 23, Union General Ulysses
Grant attempted to outflank Lee in the Battle of North Anna, Virginia.
(HN, 5/23/98)
1864 May 26-30, There was a
skirmish along the Totopotomoy Creek, Virginia.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1864 May 30, Battle of Bethesda
Church, VA.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1864 Jun 1, Battle of Cold Harbor,
Virginia, began as Lee tried to turn Grant’s flank.
(HN, 6/1/98)
1864 Jun 1-Nov, Shenandoah Valley
campaign began. (MC, 6/1/02)
1864 Jun 2, This was day 2 in the
Battle of Cold Harbor.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1864 Jun 3, Some 7,000 Union
troops were killed within 30 minutes during the Battle of Cold Harbor
in Virginia. General Lee won his last victory of the Civil War at the
Battle of Cold Harbor in Virginia
(HN, 6/3/98)(MC, 6/3/02)
1864 Jun 5, Battle of Piedmont, VA
(Augusta City).
(MC, 6/5/02)
1864 Jun 11, Gen. Wade Hampton
(1818-1902) led a company of Citadel cadets at the battle of Trevilian
Station in Virginia.
(WSJ, 6/7/08,
p.W9)(http://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=207)
1864 Jun 12, Lee sent Early into
the Shenandoah Valley.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1864 Jun 15, Secretary of War
Edwin M. Stanton signed an order establishing a military burial ground
at Robert E. Lee's home estate at Arlington. This became Arlington
National Cemetery. It was founded by Union Quartermaster Gen.
Montgomery C. Meigs, who had lost a son in the war. The first soldier
buried at Arlington was in May, 1864.
(AP, 6/15/97)(SFC, 2/16/09, p.E6)
1864 Jun 15, Battle for Petersburg
began as Union forces skirmished against the Confederate line.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1864 Jun 16, Siege of Petersburg
and Richmond began after a moonlight skirmish.
(HN, 6/16/98)
1864 Jun 16, Battle of Lynchburg,
VA.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1864 Jun 17, A 640 meter long
pontoon bridge over the James River in Virginia was finished.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1864 Jun 18, At Petersburg, Union
General Ulysses S. Grant realized the town could no longer be taken by
assault and settled into a siege.
(HN, 6/18/98)
1864 Jun 20, Battle of Petersburg,
VA, in trenches.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1864 Jun 22, Confederate General
A. P. Hill turned back a Federal flanking movement at the Weldon
Railroad near Petersburg, Virginia.
(HN, 6/22/98)
1864 Jun 22, Battle of Ream's
Station, VA (Wilson's Raid).
(MC, 6/22/02)
1864 Jun 25, Union troops
surrounding Petersburg, Virginia began building a mine tunnel
underneath the Confederate lines. With the Army of Northern Virginia
stubbornly clinging to Petersburg, Ulysses S. Grant decided to cut its
vital rail lines.
(HN, 6/25/98)
1864 Jul 1, Battle of Petersburg,
VA, began.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1864 Jul 10, During the siege of
Petersburg, General Ulysses S. Grant established a huge supply center,
called City Point, at the confluence of the James and Appomattox
rivers. After nearly 10 months of trench warfare, Confederate
resistance at Petersburg, Va., suddenly collapsed. Desperate to save
his army, Robert E. Lee called on his soldiers for one last miracle.
(HN, 7/10/98)
1864 Jul 11(Jun 11), Battle of
Trevillian Station, VA (Central Railroad).
(MC, 7/11/02)
1864 Jul 18-20, Battle of
Winchester, VA (Stephenson's Depot).
(MC, 7/19/02)
1864 Jul 24, In the Battle of
Winchester, VA, casualties numbered US1200 and CS600.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1864 Jul 27, Battle of Darbytown,
VA (Deep Bottom, Newmarket Road) (Strawberry Plains).
(MC, 7/27/02)
1864 Jul 29, During the Civil War,
Union forces tried to take Petersburg, Va., by exploding a mine under
Confederate defense lines. The attack failed. [see Jul 30]
(AP, 7/30/97)
1864 Jul 29, 3rd and last day of
battle at Deep Bottom Run, Virginia.
(MC, 7/29/02)
1864 Jul 30, Gen Burnside failed
on an attack of Petersburg and in an effort to penetrate the
Confederate lines around Petersburg, Va., Union troops exploded some
8,000 pounds of gunpowder underneath the Confederate trenches. The
blast killed 100s of Confederates. Union forces could not capitalize on
the assault and ended up trapped in the bloody crater. The ensuing
action is known as the Battle of the Crater. 4,000 Union soldiers were
killed, wounded or captured in the Battle of the Crater during the
Siege of Petersburg. [see Jul 29]
(HN, 7/30/98)(HNQ, 8/23/00)(MC, 7/30/02)
1864 Aug 1, Battle of Petersburg,
VA.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1864 Aug 13, Battle of Deep
Bottom, Va., (Strawberry Plains) and Fussell's Mill, Va.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1864 Aug 14, A Federal assault
continued for a 2nd day of battle at Deep Bottom Run, Virginia.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1864 Aug 16, Battle of Front
Royal, VA. (Guard Hill).
(MC, 8/16/02)
1864 Aug 18, Day 1 of 3 day
Petersburg Campaign-Battle of Weldon Railroad, Va.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1864 Aug 19, The 2nd day of battle
at Globe Tavern, Virginia.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1864 Aug 20, The 8th and last day
of battle at Deep Bottom Run, Va., left about 3900 casualties.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1864 Sep 1, Battle of Petersburg,
VA.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1864 Sep 3, Battle of Berryville,
VA.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1864 Sep 7, Union General Phil
Sheridan’s troops skirmished with the Confederates under Jubal Early
outside Winchester, Virginia.
(HN, 9/7/00)
1864 Sep 19, The 3rd Battle of
Winchester, Virginia (Opequon, 3rd Winchester).
(MC, 9/19/01)
1864 Sep 22, Union General Philip
Sheridan defeated Confederate General Jubal Early's troops at the
Battle of Fisher's Hill, in Virginia. Gen Early retreated to Brown's
Gap. Sheridan set up camp in Harrisonburg, Va.
(HN, 9/22/98)(MC, 9/22/01)
1864 Sep 23, Confederate and Union
forces clashed at Mount Jackson, Front Royal and Woodstock in Virginia
during the Valley campaign.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1864 Sep 23, Battle of Athens, Va.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1864 Sep 28-30, The Battle of Fort
Harrison Va. (Chaffin's Farm New Market Heights).
(MC, 9/28/01)
1864 Sep 29, Union troops captured
the Confederate Fort Harrison, outside Petersburg, Virginia. After
nearly 10 months of trench warfare, Confederate resistance at
Petersburg, Va., suddenly collapsed.
(HN, 9/29/98)
1864 Sep 29-30, Christian A.
Fleetwood was one of 13 African-American soldiers who won the Medal of
Honor at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm, Virginia.
(HN, 12/21/98)
1864 Sep 30, Confederate troops
failed to retake Fort Harrison from the Union forces during the siege
of Petersburg.
(HN, 9/30/98)
1864 Sep 30, Battle of Preble's
Farm, Va. (Poplar Springs Church).
(MC, 9/30/01)
1864 Oct 7-13, Battle of Darbytown
Road, Va.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1864 Oct 9, At the Battle of Tom's
Brook the Confederate cavalry that harassed Sheridan's campaign was
wiped by Custer and Merrit's cavalry divisions.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1864 Oct 13, Battle at Darbytown
Road Virginia resulted in 337 casualties.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1864 Oct 19, Philip Sheridan and
his gelding horse Rienzi made their most famous ride to repulse an
attack led by Lt. General Jubal A. Early at Cedar Creek, Virginia.
Sheridan had been on his way back from a strategy session in
Washington, D.C. when Early attacked. The Union scored a narrow victory
which helped it secure the Shenandoah Valley. Thomas Buchanan Read
later wrote a poem, "Sheridan‘s Ride," and created a painting
immortalizing the Union general and his steed.
(AP, 10/19/97)(HN, 10/19/98)(HNQ, 6/29/00)
1864 Oct 27, Battle of Boydton
Plank Road, Va. (Burgess' Mill, Southside Railroad).
(MC, 10/27/01)
1864 Oct 27, Battle of Fair Oaks,
Va.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1864 Oct 27, Siege of Petersburg,
Va.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1864 Oct 28, Battle at Fair Oaks,
Virginia, ended after 1554 casualties.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1865 Jan 24, A Confederate fleet
attempted to raid City Point, Va. Most of the fleet ran aground. Two
ironclads make a desperate attempt to push through to the supply
center. One gunboat was sunk and the other mysteriously turns around.
(www.qmfound.com/citypt.htm)
1865 Feb 3, President Lincoln and
Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens held a peace
conference aboard a ship off the Virginia coast. The talks deadlocked
over the issue of Southern autonomy.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 2/3/97)
1865 Feb 5, Three-day Battle of
Hatcher's Run, Va., began.
(HN, 2/5/99)
1865 Mar 2, General Early's army
was defeated at Waynesborough, Va.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1865 Mar 25, Confederate forces
captured Fort Stedman during the siege of Petersburg, Va., but were
forced to withdraw by counterattacking Union troops.
(AP, 3/25/97)(HN, 3/24/01)
1865 Mar 29, Battle of Quaker
Road, Va.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1865 Mar 29-Apr 9, The Appomattox
campaign in Virginia left 7582 killed.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1865 Mar 31, Battle of Boydton, VA
(White Oaks Roads, Dinwiddie Court House).
(MC, 3/31/02)
1865 Mar 31, Gen. Pickett moved to
5 Forks, abandoning the defense of Petersburg.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1865 Apr 1, At the Battle of
Five Forks in Petersburg, Va., Gen. Robert E. Lee began his final
offensive.
(HN, 4/1/98)(OTD)
1865 Apr 2, Confederate President
Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond,
Va. Grant broke Lee’s line at Petersburg. President Jefferson Davis
moved his government headquarters to Danville, Va., when its previous
capital, Richmond, became engulfed in flames. Though it would have been
safer to secure a location further south, Danville was naturally
protected by the Dan and Staunton rivers, and it was in close proximity
to Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army to the north and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s
army to the south. The Piedmont Railroad connected Danville and
Greensboro, N.C. and offered easy access to supplies.
(AP, 4/2/97)(HN, 4/2/98)(HNQ, 11/1/01)
1865 Apr 2, Battle of Petersburg,
Va. (Ft Gregg, Sutherland's Station).
(MC, 4/2/02)
1865 Apr 3, Union forces captured
the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(AP, 4/3/97) (HN, 4/3/98)
1865 Apr 3, Battle at Namozine
Church, Virginia (Appomattox Campaign).
(MC, 4/3/02)
1865 Apr 4, Lee's army arrived at
the Amelia Courthouse.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1865 Apr 5, As the Confederate
army approached Appomattox, it skirmished with Union army at Amelia
Springs and Paine's Cross Road, Va.
(HN, 4/5/99)(MC, 4/5/02)
1865 Apr 6, At the Battle of
Sayler's Creek, a third of Lee's army was cut off by Union troops
pursuing him to Appomattox. Skirmish at High Bridge, VA, (Appomattox).
(HN, 4/6/99)(MC, 4/6/02)
1865 Apr 7, Battle of Farmville,
VA.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1865 Apr 8, Lee's retreat was cut
off near Appomattox Court House. The 7th Regiment of Virginia
Volunteers fought at Clover Hill, Appomattox Court House.
(RC handout, 5/27/96)(HN, 4/8/98)
1865 Apr 9, Confederate Gen.
Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court
House, Virginia, and ended the Civil War. A lifelong friend and trusted
aide of Ulysses S. Grant, Seneca Indian Ely Parker was at his general's
side at the surrender at Appomattox. The Union 20th Maine Infantry Unit
was designated as one of the regiments to receive the surrender of
Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. One in four Southern men of military
age died vs. one in ten for the Yankees.
(A&IP, p.92)(AP, 4/9/97)(WSJ, 4/2/98, p.A20)(HN,
4/9/98)
1865 Apr 10, At Appomattox Court,
Va, General Robert E. Lee issued Gen Order #9, his last orders to the
Army of Northern Virginia. Seneca Indian Ely Parker was at his
general's side at Appomattox. In 2001 William C. Davis authored "An
Honorable Defeat."
(HN, 4/10/99)(WSJ, 6/13/01, p.A18)(MC, 4/10/02)
1865 Apr 14, On the evening of
Good Friday, just after 10 p.m., Pres. Lincoln was shot and
mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth while attending the comedy "Our
American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington DC. Southern
sympathizer John Wilkes Booth burst into the presidential box and shot
Lincoln behind the ear. Booth shouted out “sic semper tyrannis” (thus
always to tyrants), Virginia’s state motto, after shooting Pres.
Lincoln. He leaped to the stage, breaking his left leg on impact, and
escaped through a side door. Lincoln was carried to a nearby house
where he remained unconscious until his death at 7:22 the following
morning. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who had kept vigil at
Lincoln's bedside, said, "Now he belongs to the ages." As I would not
be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of
democracy.”
(V.D.-H.K.p.277)(AP, 4/14/97)(AP, 4/14/98)(HNPD,
4/14/00)(WSJ, 10/13/06, p.W13)
1865 Apr 26, Battle of Ft.
Tobacco, VA.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1865 Apr 26, John Wilkes Booth
(27) was tracked to a Virginia farm near Bowling Green, and shot in the
neck by federal troops when he tried to escape from a burning barn. At
some time prior to this Booth’s leg was operated on by Dr. Samuel Mudd,
ancestor of news commentator Roger Mudd, who obtained a presidential
pardon for Dr. Mudd’s financial ruin. Dr. Mudd served time at the Fort
Jefferson Prison in the Dry Tortugas. [see Apr 27]
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A8)(WP, 6/29/96, p.A16)(AP, 4/26/98)
1865 Apr 27, John Wilkes Booth was
killed by Federal Cavalry in Virginia. In 2004 Michael W. Kauffman
authored “American Brutus.” In 2006 James L. Swanson authored “Manhunt:
The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. [see Apr 26]
(HN, 4/27/98)(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.P10)(WSJ, 1/28/07,
p.P10)
1865 Apr 30-May 1, Gen Sherman's
"Haines's Bluff" at Snyder's Mill, Virginia.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1865 Jun 17, Edmund Ruffin
(b.1794), Virginia-born secessionist, writer, committed suicide after
Confederacy defeat. For most of his life, Ruffin was a farmer and a
renowned agricultural reformer. Increasingly, however, he turned his
attention in the 1850s to politics, especially the defense of slavery
and secession. Plagued by ill health, family misfortunes, and the rapid
collapse of Confederate forces in 1865, Ruffin proclaimed "unmitigated
hatred to Yankee rule," and on June 17, 1865, at his estate of Redmoor,
in Amelia county, Virginia, he pulled the trigger on his silver-mounted
gun and joined other fallen Confederate soldiers, the casualty of what
some call the “last shot of the Civil War.” . His act, sometimes
considered the "last shot" of the Civil War, become identified with the
Confederacy's defeat and a symbol of the lost cause.
(www.famousamericans.net/edmundruffin/)
1865 Aug 21, Confederate General
A.P. Hill attacked Union troops south of Petersburg, Va., at the Weldon
railroad. His attack was repulsed, resulting in heavy Confederate
casualties. [suspect year error, see Jun 22, 1864]
(HN, 8/21/98)
1865 Oct 2, Former Confederate
General Robert E. Lee became president of Washington and Lee University
in Virginia.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1866 Apr 2, Pres. ended war in
Ala, Ark, Fla, Ga, Miss, La, NC, SC, Ten & Va.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1867 Apr 24, Black demonstrators
staged ride-ins on Richmond, Va., streetcars.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1868 Apr 1, The Hampton Institute
was founded in Hampton, Va.
(HN, 4/1/99)
1870 Jan 26, Virginia rejoined the
Union.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1870 Oct 12, Gen. Robert E. Lee
(63) died in Lexington, Va. In 1998 David J. Eicher published "Robert
E. Lee: A Life Portrait." In 2001 Michael Fellman authored "The Making
of Robert E. Lee." In 2007 Elizabeth Brown Pryor authored “Reading the
Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters.“
(AP, 10/12/97)(SFEC, 4/19/98, Par p.20)(SSFC,
1/28/01, Par p.12)(WSJ, 5/15/07, p.D6)
1883 Nov 3, Race riots took place
in Danville, Virginia, and 4 blacks were killed.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1887 An electric-powered car in
Richmond got its power from a four-wheeled carriage trolled along wires
overhead, hence the name trolley car.
(SFC,10/18/97, p.E4)
1893 Sep 14, In Virginia the
Randolph-Macon Women’s College opened under Pres. William Waugh
Smith. The first session began with 36 boarding students and 12
professors.
(SSFC, 9/10/06, p.A2)(www.rmwc.edu/about/history.asp)
1899 May 5, Freeman F. Gosden,
radio comedy writer and performer (Amos 'n' Andy), was born in
Richmond, Va.
(HN, 5/5/01)(MC, 5/5/02)
1900s In the early 1900s an
absentee landlord forced the inhabitants of Assateague Island to move
by closing access to the best clam beds. The people all moved to
Chincoteague Island.
(SFC, 8/14/00, p.A8)
1901 E.P. Valentine, antiquarian,
removed hundreds of Monacan remains from a burial site in Virginia
later known as the Hayes Creek Mound. The remains were reburied in 1998.
(Arch, 9/00, p.56)
1905 May 15, Joseph Cotton, actor,
was born in Petersburg, Va.
(AP, 5/15/05)
1907 Apr 26, The Jamestown, Va.,
Tercentenary Exposition opened.
(www.jamestown2007.org/past-1907.cfm)(Econ, 5/1/07,
p.40)
1907 Dec 16, US Navy battleships,
which came to be known collectively as the "Great White Fleet," set
sail from Hampton Roads, Va., on a 14-month round-the-world voyage at
the order of President Theodore Roosevelt, who wanted to demonstrate
American sea power.
(AP, 12/16/07)
1908 Sep 3, Orville Wright began
two weeks of flight trials that impressed onlookers with his complete
control of his new Type A Military Flyer. In addition to setting an
altitude record of 310 feet and an endurance record of more than one
hour, he had carried aloft the first military observer, Lieutenant
Frank Lahm.
(HNPD, 9/16/98)
1908 Sep 9, Orville Wright made
the 1st 1-hr airplane flight at Fort Myer, Va.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1909 Feb 22, The Great White Fleet
returned to Norfolk, Va., from an around-the-world show of naval power.
1st US fleet to circle the globe.
(HN, 2/22/98)(MC, 2/22/02)
1909 May 10, Maybelle Carter,
country singer (Johnny Cash Show), was born in Nickelsville, Va.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1909 Jul 27, Orville Wright tested
the U.S. Army's first airplane, flying himself and a passenger for 1
hour, 12 minutes and 40 seconds over Fort Myer, Virginia.
(AP, 7/27/97)(HN, 7/27/02)(MC, 7/27/02)
1908 Sep 17, Orville Wright's
passenger on a test flight was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. They were
circling the landing field at Fort Myer, Va., when a crack developed in
the blade of the aircraft's propeller. Wright lost control of the Flyer
and the biplane plunged to the ground. Selfridge became powered
flight's first fatality, and Wright was seriously injured in the crash.
But despite the tragic mishap, the War Department awarded the contract
for the first military aircraft to Wright.
(HNPD, 9/16/98)
1909 Feb 22, The Great White Fleet
returned to Norfolk, Va., from an around-the-world show of naval power.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1909 Virginia executed 17 people.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.A1)
1910 The Embrey Dam was
constructed on the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg, Va. The
22-foot dam was removed in 2004 to open up the river to migratory fish.
(SFC, 2/24/04, p.A2)
1913 Mar 16 The 15,000-ton
battleship Pennsylvania was launched at Newport News, Va.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1914 DuPont of Wilmington, Del.,
ordered 61 prefabricated houses from Aladdin Homes for a new town
called Hopewell Farm, Va., being built for workers in its dynamite
factory.
(WSJ, 10/31/05, p.B1)
1915 Oct 21, The 1st transatlantic
radio-telephone message was transmitted from Arlington, Va., to Paris.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1918 Feb 9, Army chaplain school
organized at Ft. Monroe, Va.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1919 The 1st rotary-dial
telephones were installed in Norfolk, Va.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.C1)
1921 Nov 11, President Harding
dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National
Cemetery. The unknown soldier was buried in Virginia’s Arlington
National Cemetery on Armistice Day. He had been taken from an American
cemetery in France.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.B8) (AP, 11/11/97)
1921 Dec 1, The US Navy flew the
first nonrigid dirigible to use helium; the C-7 traveled from Hampton
Roads, Va., to Washington.
(AP, 12/1/06)
1922 Feb 21, Airship Rome exploded
at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and 34 died.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1922 Jul 6, Vice-president Calvin
Coolidge gave a speech at Fredericksburg City Park on behalf of a fund
raising campaign to save and restore the Kenmore House, the home of
Elizabeth (sister of George Washington) and Fielding Lewis.
(HT, 5/97, p.44,68)
1924 Mar 20, The Virginia
Legislature passed two closely related eugenics laws: SB 219, entitled
"The Racial Integrity Act[1]" and SB 281, "An ACT to provide for the
sexual sterilization of inmates of State institutions in certain
cases", henceforth referred to as "The Sterilization Act". The Racial
Integrity Act required that a racial description of every person be
recorded at birth, and felonized marriage between "white persons" and
non-white persons. The law was the most famous ban on miscegenation in
the US, and was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1967, in Loving
v. Virginia. Virginia repealed the sterilization in 1979. In 2001 the
House of Delegates voted to express regret for the state’s selecting
breeding policies that had forced sterilizations on some 8,000 people.
The Senate soon followed suit.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924)(SSFC,
2/4/01, p.A3)(SFC, 2/15/01, p.C16)
1926 Nov 27, Restoration of
Williamsburg, Virginia, began.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1927 Aug 1, In Bristol, Tennessee,
the Carter Family (A.P., wife Sara, and cousin Maybelle) came down from
the mountains of Virginia and began recording their country style
"hillbilly" music for Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine
Co. Jimmy Rogers (1898-1933) came from Mississippi to record. In
2002 Mark Zwonitzer and Charles Hirshberg authored "Will You Miss me
When I’m Gone: The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music."
(Hem., 4/97, p.68)(WSJ, 8/1/02, p.A1)(SSFC, 8/4/02,
p.M3)
1927 Oct 18, George Campbell Scott
(d.1999), later Hollywood actor, was born in Wise, Va. He grew up in
Detroit and graduated from Redford High School.
(SFC, 9/24/99, p.D2)
1927 The Supreme Court decision of
Buck vs. Bell supported a 1924 Virginia compulsory sterilization bill
and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes commented "three generations of
imbeciles are enough." Carrie Buck was sterilized by physicians at the
Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded in Lynchburg. In 2006
Harry Bruinius authored “Better For All the World: The Secret History
of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity.”
(NH, 7/02, p.12)(WSJ, 2/28/06, p.D8)
1928 Nov 12, The ocean liner
Vestris sank off the Virginia Cape with 328 aboard, killing 111.
(HN, 11/12/98)
1929 Jun 23, Valerie June Carter
(d.2003) was born in Maces Springs, Va., to Mother Maybelle Carter, a
founding member of the Carter Family trio. She married Johnny Cash in
1968.
(SFC, 5/16/03, p.A24)
1930 Mar 11, Taft was the first
U.S. president to be buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.
(HN, 3/11/98)
1930 The Mariner’s Museum opened
in Newport News.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A20)
1931 Mar 2, Tom Wolfe, journalist,
author (Right Stuff), was born in Richmond, VA.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1932 Feb 27, Explosion in coal
mine in Boissevain, Virginia, left 38 dead.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1932 Sep 8, Patsy Cline (d.1963),
country singer, was born in Winchester, Va. Her hits included "Crazy"
and "I Fall to Pieces."
(HN, 9/8/00)(MC, 9/8/01)
1934 Apr 24, Shirley MacLaine,
actress, mystic (Irma la Douce), was born in Richmond, Va.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1935 Jan 24, The 1st canned beer,
"Krueger Cream Ale," was sold by Krueger Brewing Co. of Richmond, Va.
(www.bcca.com/bccacan1.html)
1935 Alice Stuart (d.2001 at 88),
a black graduate student, sought admission to the Univ. of Virginia but
was rejected. Virginia then established a tuition supplement program to
fund black students for graduate schools outside the state, which
Stuart accepted. The program was declared unconstitutional in 1950.
(SFC, 6/15/01, p.D5)
1938 Apr 22, In Virginia 45
workers were killed in a coal mine explosion at Keen Mountain in
Buchanan County.
(AP, 4/22/08)
1938 The town of Jarratt was
incorporated. The Death House of Greensville Correctional Center was
located just 2 miles away.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A6)
1939 The Carter Family left
Virginia and went to Texas to pioneer border radio broadcasts.
(SSFC, 8/4/02, p.M3)
1941 Jul 17, Brigadier-General
Brehon Somervell gathered a small group of officer’s from the army’s
construction division and told them they were to build a single
headquarters to house the entire war department, then scattered over
sites, in Virginia.
(Econ, 6/30/07, p.93)
1941 Sep 11, Ground breaking
ceremonies were held for the Pentagon. The 38-acre Pentagon was built
in Arlington, Va., over the next 2 years. Construction was ordered by
Brig. Gen. Brehon B. Sommervell to consolidate the 17 War Dept.
buildings. It cost $83 million and was located on a plot known as
Arlington Farms, that was bordered by 5 roads. In 2006 James Carroll
authored “House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of
American Power.”
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A6)(Econ, 5/27/06, p.81)
1942 Oct 23, The Western Task
Force, destined for North Africa, departed from Hampton Roads, Virginia.
(HN, 10/23/98)
1943 Jan 15, Work was completed on
the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense in
Arlington, Va. In 2007 Steve Vogel authored “The Pentagon: A History.”
(AP, 1/15/98)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.93)
1944 Jul, In Virginia Irene Morgan
was jailed for refusing to give up her bus seat. A suit followed that
led to the Jun 3, 1946 Supreme Court decision that struck down
Virginia’s segregation statute on interstate buses.
(SFC, 8/4/00, p.D2)
1946 Jun 3, A Supreme Court
decision struck down Virginia’s segregation statute on interstate
buses. The case stemmed from the 1944 incident where Irene Morgan was
jailed for refusing to give up her bus seat.
(SFC, 8/4/00, p.D2)
1949 Oct 29, Alonzo G. Moron of
the Virgin Islands became the first African- American president of
Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia.
(HN, 10/29/98)
1951 Oliver W. Hill (1907-2007), a
black lawyer, argued on behalf of students protesting deplorable
conditions at a high school for African Americans in Farmville, Va. The
case became one of 5 that were decided in the 1954 Supreme Court Brown
vs. Board of Education decision.
(SFC, 8/6/07, p.A2)
1954 Nov 10, The US Marine Corps
Memorial, depicting the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima in
1945, was dedicated by President Eisenhower in Arlington, Va.
(AP, 11/10/08)
1957 Jan 7, Katie Couric,
[Katherine], TV news host (Today), was born in Arlington, VA.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1957 Apr 26, Jamestown, Va., 350th
Anniversary Festival opened.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1957 Apr 29, The 1st military
nuclear power plant was dedicated at Fort Belvoir, Va.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1957 Oct 16, Britain's Queen
Elizabeth II and Prince Philip began a visit to the United States with
a stopover at the site of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia.
(AP, 10/16/07)
1957 The Jamestown Settlement was
created by the state to celebrate 350 years of Jamestown. It was
intended as a one-year memorial but continued on.
(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)
1957 George Mason Univ. began as
an extension of the Univ. of Virginia. It became independent in 1972.
(WSJ, 3/31/06, p.W11)
1958 Jul, Mildred Loving
(1940-2008), a woman of American Indian and black heritage, and her
white husband, Richard (d.1975), were arrested in Virginia within weeks
of arriving from Washington DC and convicted on charges of "cohabiting
as man and wife. In 1967 the US Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia,
struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.
(Econ, 5/17/08, p.105)
1958 In Virginia miners and
financiers settled on the banks of the Levisa Fork River and founded
the town of Grundy to extract local coal deposits. Repeated flooding
forced the town in 1997 to plan for a move to higher ground.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A3)
1959 Feb 2, Arlington and Norfolk,
Va., peacefully desegregated public schools.
(HN, 2/2/99)
1959 Jun, Supervisors of Prince
Edward County, Va., passed a $210,654 budget that provided no money for
public schools and cut the property tax in half rather than comply with
school desegregation. The public schools closed down for 5 years. The
county whites opened a tuition-free, private academy for white children.
(WSJ, 5/17/04, p.A1)
1959 Nov 3, Pres. Eisenhower laid
the cornerstone for the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Va.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A3)
1960 Sep 24, The USS Enterprise,
the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was launched at Newport
News, Va.
(AP, 9/24/97)(HN, 9/24/98)
1960 Alvin Pleasant Carter,
legendary country musician (A.P. Carter), died in his Virginia mountain
cabin. His brother Ezra pressed his 3 daughters and Maybelle Carter to
form a 2nd generation Carter Family music group. Johnny Cash was
Maybelle’s son-in-law.
(SSFC, 8/4/02, p.M3)
1961 Oct 8, The US Constellation
crashed at Richmond, Virginia, 74 die.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1961 Dec, The Woodrow Wilson
Bridge opened on I-95 over the Potomac River between Maryland and
Virginia. The 6-lane bridge was demolished in 2006 following the
completion of one of 2 new 6-lane drawbridges.
(SFC, 8/30/06, p.A2)
1962 Nov 17, Washington's Dulles
International Airport opened in rural Virginia and was dedicated by
President Kennedy. The terminal was designed by Finnish-born architect
Eero Saarinen. The airport spawned a high-tech corridor that by 2005
sat in the fastest growing county in the US.
(Hem., 5/97, p.68)(AP, 11/17/97)(Econ, 11/26/05,
p.80)
1962 The planned community in
Reston, Va., was built.
(SFC, 11/4/98, Z1 p.4)
1962 The Virginia General Assembly
declared George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party an enemy of the
state.
(AH, 2/06, p.64)
1963 Jul 4, Naturalization
ceremonies began to be held annually at Monticello.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A3)
1964 The US Supreme Court ruled
that Prince Edward County, Va., had to provide public schools.
(WSJ, 5/17/04, p.A13)
1967 Jun 12, The US Supreme Court,
in Loving v. Virginia, struck down state laws prohibiting interracial
marriages. Mildred Loving (1940-2008) and her white husband, Richard
(d.1975), married in 1958, had been arrested in Virginia within weeks
of arriving from Washington DC and convicted on charges of "cohabiting
as man and wife.
(AP, 6/12/97)(HN, 6/12/98)(AP, 5/5/08)(Econ,
5/17/08, p.105)
1967 Aug 25, George Lincoln
Rockwell (b.1918), founder of the American Nazi Party, was shot to
death in the parking lot of a shopping center in Arlington, Va. Former
party member John Patler (29) was later convicted of the killing. In
1999 Frederick J. Simonelli authored “American Fuehrer” George Lincoln
Rockwell and the American Nazi Party.”
(AP, 8/25/07)(AH, 2/06, p.60,64)
1967 Dec 15, John Patler (b.1938)
was convicted for the August 25 murder of George Lincoln Rockwell, head
of the American Nazi Party. He was sentenced top 20 years, but served
only 4 before being paroled in August, 1975.
(AH, 2/06, p.66)
1968 May 8, William Styron
(1925-2006), a white author, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
for “The Confessions of Nat Turner.” The book was based on the true
story of an 1831 slave revolt in Virginia. Some black intellectuals,
including Cornell historian John Henrik Clarke, published a critical
response to the book.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rfk/sfeature/sf_1968_text_05.html)
1969 The Young America’s
Foundation of Fairfax was founded to teach patriotism, limit government
and other values espoused by later Pres. Ronald Reagan. In 1998 the
foundation purchased the 680-acre Reagan ranch north of Santa Barbara.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A3)
1970 Mar 30, Secretariat (d.1989),
triple crown race horse (1973), was born in Virginia.
(http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016464.html)
1971 May 28, Audie Murphy
(b.1926), WW II hero and actor, was killed in plane crash near Roanoke,
Va.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy)
1972 Virginia named a new state
university after George Mason, paying tribute to one of the least
remembered of the major figures among the Founding Fathers. Mason was
among those who opposed adopting the draft US constitution because it
had no language to protect individual rights.
(AP, 3/28/06)
1973 Feb 27, U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that a Virginia pool club could not bar residents because of
color.
(HN, 2/27/98)
1974 Apr 3, A series of 148 deadly
tornadoes struck wide parts of the South and Midwest before jumping
across the border into Canada; some 330 people were killed in 13 states
(Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi,
North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West
Virginia. Total property damage was estimated at $600 million. In 2007
Mark Levine authored “F5: Devastation, Survival, and the Most Violent
Tornado Outbreak of the 20th Century.”
(AP, 4/3/99)(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(SSFC, 9/4/05,
p.A7)(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.P10)
1978 In Virginia the Washington
and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park, a ribbon of open space created
from a railroad’s abandoned right-of-way, was opened.
(NG, 5.1988, intro)
1979 Virginia repealed its 1924
eugenics law.
(SFC, 2/15/01, p.C16)
1981 Dec 28, Elizabeth Jordan
Carr, the first American test-tube baby, was born in Norfolk, Va. Dr.
Mason Andrews (1919-2006) performed the delivery by cesarean section.
(AP, 12/28/97)(SFC, 10/16/06, p.B6)
1982 Mar 22, The US submarine
Jacksonville collided with a Turkish freighter near Virginia.
(http://navysite.de/ssn/ssn699.htm)
1982 Virginia banned uranium
mining. It remained legal to process enriched uranium into usable
nuclear fuel. In 2008 it was reported that the largest undeveloped
uranium deposit in the US was in Virginia’s Pittsylvania County.
(www.cleanwateraction.org/publication/keep-ban-uranium-mining-virginia)(WSJ,
7/26/08, p.A7)
1982 Rebecca Lynn Williams was
raped and killed. Earl Washington Jr., with an IQ of 69, confessed to
the murder and was sentenced to be executed. In 2001 DNA evidence
cleared Washington.
(SFC, 2/13/01, p.D2)
1982 Orbital Sciences, a
Virginia-based company, was founded by David Thompson, Bruce Ferguson
and Scott Webster. It later built the first private space rocket. In
1990, the company successfully carried out eight space missions,
highlighted by the initial launch of the Pegasus rocket, the world's
first privately-developed space launch vehicle.
(Econ, 8/23/08,
p.69)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Sciences_Corporation)
1983 A tire fire burned a pile of
7 million tires for 9 months.
(SFC, 8/10/98, p.A20)
1984 A mass death row prisoner
escape took place from the Mecklenburg prison in Virginia. In 2000 Joe
Jackson and William F. Burke Jr. authored "Dead Run: The Untold Story
of Dennis Stockton and America’s Only Mass Escape From Death Row."
(SFEC, 4/16/00, BR p.12)
1985 In Virginia Helen Schartner
was murdered. Joseph O’Dell III was tried and convicted for the murder
and was executed in 1997. He pleaded innocence right to the moment of
death and married Lori Urs just before his execution.
(SFC, 7/24/97, p.A3)
1986 Dec, Tony Albert Mackall shot
a killed Mary Dahn during a robbery at a Shell gas station in
Woodbridge. Mackall was executed by lethal injection in 1998.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A3)
1986 Rev. Sri Swami Satchidananda
(1914-2002) founded the Yogaville ashram in Virginia.
(SFC, 8/20/02, p.A22)
1987 Aug 21, Sgt. Clayton
Lonetree, the first Marine ever court-martialed for spying, was
convicted in Quantico, Va., of passing secrets to the KGB after
becoming romantically involved with a Soviet woman while serving as a
U.S. Embassy guard in Moscow. Lonetree ended up serving eight years in
a military prison, and was released in February 1996.
(AP, 8/21/97)
1988 Apr 6, Black Arctic explorer
Matthew Henson (1866-1955) was re-buried next to Robert Peary in
Arlington, Va.
(www.answers.com/topic/matthew-henson)
1989 Jan 26, L. Douglas Wilder,
the lieutenant governor of Virginia, launched his successful campaign
to become the first elected black governor of a U.S. state.
(AP, 1/26/99)
1989 Nov 7, L. Douglas Wilder won
the governor's race in Virginia, becoming the first elected black
governor in US history.
(AP, 11/7/97)
1990 Jan 13, L. Douglas Wilder of
Virginia, the nation's first elected black governor, took the oath of
office in Richmond.
(AP, 1/13/00)
1990 Thomas H. Beavers raped and
suffocated a 61-year-old widow. He was executed in Greensville in 1997
by lethal injection.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.B1)
1991 Mar 22, Law enforcement
officers raided fraternities at Univ. of Virginia seizing drugs.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1991-3/1991-03-22-ABC-9.html)
1991 Sep 13, Virginia Gov. L.
Douglas Wilder declared his candidacy for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(AP, 9/13/01)
1991 Oct 17, Tennessee Ernie Ford
(b.1919), country singer (16 Tons), died in Reston, Va.
(AP, 10/17/01)(www.ernieford.com/Bio.htm)
1992 Mar 30, Walter Mickens Jr.
robbed, attempted sodomy, and stabbed Timothy Hall (17) 143 times in
Newport News, Va. Mickens was convicted of murder in 1993 and was
executed in 2002.
(SFC, 3/28/02, p.A3)(SFC, 6/13/02, p.A5)
1992 May 20, Proclaiming his
innocence to the end, Roger Keith Coleman was executed in Virginia's
electric chair for the 1981 rape-murder of his sister-in-law, Wanda
McCoy. In 2006 DNA evidence confirmed that Coleman was guilty.
(AP, 5/20/97)(AP, 1/13/06)
1992 Angel Francisco Breard of
Paraguay was convicted in the murder of Ruth Dickie in Arlington, Va.
The consulate of Paraguay was not notified and the death sentence of
Breard was under int’l. attention in 1998 for treaty violations. Breard
was executed Apr 14,1998.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.A3)(SFC, 4/15/98, p.A3)
1993 Jan 25, Five commuters were
shot outside the gates of the US CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Two
people died. Mir [Amil] Aimal Kasi, a Pakistani national, was tracked
down for the shooting in 1997 in Afghanistan and returned to the US. He
was convicted of murder in 1997 and was executed Nov 14, 2002.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A3)(SFC,11/11/97,
p.A3)(SFC,11/15/97, p.A3)(AP, 1/25/98)(SFC, 11/15/02, p.A3)
1993 Jun 23, John Wayne Bobbitt
had his penis severed by his wife, Ecuadorian born Lorena Bobbitt, in a
domestic dispute. In 1996 he was ordained a minister in the Universal
Life Church. Lorena Bobbitt of Prince William County, Va., sexually
mutilated her husband, John, after he allegedly raped her. John Bobbitt
was later acquitted of marital sexual assault; Lorena Bobbitt was later
acquitted of malicious wounding by reason of insanity.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.A3)(AP, 6/23/98)
1994 Jan 10, In Manassas, Va.,
Lorena Bobbitt went on trial, charged with malicious wounding of her
husband, John. She had cut off her husband's penis and was acquitted by
reason of temporary insanity.
(AP, 1/10/99)
1994 Jan 15, George Allen began
serving as Virginia’s 67th governor and served to 1998.
(Econ, 4/29/06,
p.34)(http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=A000121)
1994 Jul 21, Hugh Scott (93)
former US Senate Republican leader died in Falls Church, Va.
(AP, 7/21/99)
1994 Dec 31, John C. Salvi III,
accused of killing two receptionists at two Boston-area abortion
clinics on Dec 30, was arrested in Norfolk, Va. Salvi, later convicted
of murder, committed suicide in prison.
(AP, 12/31/04)
1994 Virginia passed legislation
to abolish parole and extend prison time for violent criminals
effective as of Jan 1, 1995.
(Econ, 4/4/09,
p.40)(www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3566617.html)
1995 Jun 19, The Richmond Virginia
Planning Commission approved plans to place a memorial statue of tennis
professional Arthur Ashe.
(HN, 6/19/00)
1995 Jun 19, Jennifer Lea Evans
(21), a vacationing college student, was killed outside a Virginia
Beach nightclub. Navy SEAL trainees Dustin Turner and his best friend,
Billy Joe Brown, were convicted for the same crime. When they were
arrested, each man accused the other of being the killer. In 2009 Brown
said he killed Evans with no help from Turner. Brown said he wanted to
tell the truth after almost 13 years because he had found religion in
prison. A court soon overturned the convictions against Turner (33).
(SFC, 8/5/09,
p.A4)(http://freedusty.com/Story/Dusty_Story.html)
1995 Sep 10, A plane carrying
members of a skydivers club crashed in Shacklefords, Virginia, killing
ten parachutists, the plane’s pilot and a man on the ground.
(AP, 9/10/00)
1996 Jun 1, The bodies of Julianne
Williams (24) and Laura Winans (26) were found in Shenandoah National
Park, a week after they were last seen alive. Their hands were bound
and their throats were slashed. On Apr 10, 2002 Darrel David Rice (34)
of Maryland was indicted for the murders along with hate charges.
(SFC, 4/11/02, p.A15)
1996 Aug 16, Eric Nesbitt (21), an
airman at Langley AFB, was shot and killed after he was abducted and
forced to withdraw money from an ATM machine by Daryl R. Atkins and
another man. Atkins scored 59 on an IQ test in 1998, below the Virginia
cut-off of 70 for retardation. In 2002 the US Supreme Court ruled that
it was unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. In 2004
Atkins scored 74 and faced another trial. In 2005 a jury found Atkins
to be mentally competent.
(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.A9)(SFC, 8/6/05,
p.A4)(www.vuac.org/capital/row.html)
1996 Jack Allen Powell, a Virginia
Alcohol Beverage Control agent, authored "A Dying Art," a history of
moonshine production in Appalachia.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A12)
1996 Ann Olson (25) and Keith
O'Connell (23), students at James Madison Univ, were shot to
death. Brent Simmons was convicted under reduced charges and sentenced
to 20 years.
(USAT, 3/5/04, p.9A)
1997 Apr, The state Legislature
voted to bench the state song, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," which
some felt extolled slavery.
(WSJ, 3/5/98, p.A1)
1997 May 19, An indictment was
filed against NBC sportscaster Marv Albert for biting a woman in an
Arlington, Va., hotel on Feb 12 as many as 15 times and forcing her to
perform oral sex. At trial, Albert ended up pleading guilty to assault
and battery; he served no jail time.
(AP,
5/19/07)(www.eonline.com/News/Court/0597.albert.html)
1997 Jul 8, Michelle Moore-Bosko
(18) of Pittsburgh, who had recently moved to Norfolk, Va., and
secretly married her longtime boyfriend, William Bosko, was found raped
and killed. 4 sailors, who became known as the Norfolk Four, were later
convicted for her rape and murder. In 2009 Danial Williams (37), Derek
Tice (39) and Joseph Dick (33) were pardoned, culminating a four-year
campaign for clemency based on the sailors' claims that they were
coerced into falsely admitting their involvement, that the details they
provided were wrong and that there was no physical evidence linking
them to the crime. A fourth sailor, Eric Wilson (33), served more than
eight years in prison and has been released. A fifth man, Omar Ballard,
was also convicted in the crime, and was sentenced to 100 years in
prison, 59 of which were suspended. He is the only man whose DNA
matched that found at the scene. His confession stated that he
committed the crime by himself.
(SFC, 8/7/09,
p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Norfolk_Four)
1997 Jul 24, William J. Brennan
(91), retired Supreme Court Justice, died in Arlington, Va.
(AP, 7/24/98)
1997 Jul 25, In Elk Creek,
Virginia, Louis Ceparano and Emmett Cressell Jr. doused Garnett Paul
"G.P." Johnson with gasoline, set him on fire and cut off his head.
They were both indicted for murder and robbery. Ceparano pleaded guilty
to murder and was sentenced to life in prison in 1998. Cressell (38)
was convicted of 1st degree murder in 1998 and sentenced to life in
prison in 1999.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/24/97, p.A4)(SFC,
5/30/98, p.A3)(SFC, 11/6/98, p.A2)(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A4)
1997 Aug 18, In Virginia the VMI
class of 2001 included 30 women among the 460 freshman students. Beth
Ann Hogan became the first coed in the Virginia Military Institute's
158-year history.
(SFC, 8/18/97, p.A3)(AP, 8/18/98)
1997 Sep 22, Sportscaster Marv
Albert went on trial in Arlington, Va., on charges of sodomy and
assault. Albert later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, received
no jail time and later had his record cleared.
(AP, 9/22/02)
1997 Dec 9, Michael Charles Satche
(29) was put to death for the rape and murder of a woman. It was the
state’s 8th execution this year.
(SFC,12/10/97, p.A7)
1997 Dec, In Louisa Tammy Baker
(24) was killed by an explosive device detonated outside her apartment.
Baker was pregnant at the time.
(SFC, 4/18/98, p.A5)
1997 In Grundy, Va., the new
Appalachian School of Law opened. The 1st class of 34 graduated in 2000.
(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A3)
1997 Virginia executed 9 people.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.A1)
1998 Jan 23, A judge in Fairfax,
Va., sentenced Mir Aimal Kasi to death for an assault rifle attack
outside CIA headquarters in 1993 that killed two men and wounded three
other people. Kasi was executed November 2002.
(AP, 1/23/03)
1998 Feb 16, Mr. Jefferson, the
1st cloned calf, was born in Virginia.
(www.revivicor.com/MrJefferson.htm)
1998 Apr 17, Homemade bombs
injured 3 people in Louisa and Mineral.
(SFC, 4/18/98, p.A5)
1998 May 18, In Roanoke a
suspected arson fire destroyed a 3-story rooming house and killed 5
people, 3 men and 2 women.
(SFC, 5/19/98, p.A3)
1998 Jun 15, In Richmond,
Virginia, Quinshawn Booker (14) fired 8-9 rounds from a .32 caliber
semiautomatic pistol at Armstrong High School and wounded a coach and a
volunteer aide.
(SFC, 6/16/98, p.A3)
1998 Aug 25, Lewis F. Powell Jr.
(90), former Supreme Court Justice (1972-1987), died in Richmond, Va.
He wrote the majority opinion allowing colleges and universities to
consider race among other factors in student admittance.
(SFC, 8/26/98, p.A4)
1998 Sep 20, The Univ. of Calif.
at Berkeley tied with the Univ. of Virginia as the best public
university in the country according to a US News & World Report.
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.A24)
1998 Sep 19, Nicole Johnson (24)
from Roanoke, Va., was crowned Miss America for 1999.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, p.A2)
1998 Dec 25, A storm snapped power
lines in Virginia and left thousands without power as cold weather hit
across the South.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.A9)
1998 Child support authorities in
Fairfax began immobilizing the cars of deadbeat parents with baby blue
and pink "boots."
(SFC, 1/4/00, p.A5)
1999 Feb, The City Council of
Richmond passed an ordnance that restricted the content of pop music
performances where minors are allowed.
(SFC, 2/27/99, p.A5)
1999 Apr 5, At Newport News, Va.,
members of local 8888 of the United Steelworkers went on strike. The
shipyard offered a $2.49 per hour raise over 3 years as opposed to the
union demand for $3.95.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.D1)
1999 Jul 1, In Dale City Natalie
Giles Davis died after 2 days in a coma from injuries inflicted in a
brutal beating by Teresa Hattie Dixon (18) and a 16-year-old girl.
Davis had complained that the girls were blocking the street with their
car.
(SFC, 7/2/99, p.A3)
1999 Sep 6, Gregory Smith (10),
boy genius, began his first day of class at Randolph-Macon College in
Ashland.
(SFC, 9/9/99, p.A11)
1999 Sep 7-19, Hurricane Floyd
caused one death in Caribbean and 56 in United States. Storm hit
Bahamas before striking Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Virginia, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1999 Nov 2, Republicans took
control of the General Assembly for the first time with 52 of 100 seats.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.A17)
2000 Mar 5, PPL Therapeutics of
Scotland cloned 5 piglets in Blacksburg, Va.
(SFC, 3/15/00, p.A3)
2000 Mar 5, In Virginia an
explosion at an auto parts factory killed 3 people in at New River
Castings in Radford.
(SFC, 3/7/00, p.A5)
2000 Sep 22, Ronald Edward Gay
(53) killed one person and wounded 6 when he opened fire at the
Backstreet Café, a gay bar in Roanoke.
(SFEC, 9/24/00, p.A2)
2000 Oct 2, Virginia Gov. James
Gilmore granted an absolute pardon to Earl Washington Jr., 17 years
after the mentally retarded man was convicted for the rape and homicide
of a mother of 3. An initial 1994 DNA test indicated another man in the
case. A new DNA test identified a convicted rapist. In 2006 a federal
jury awarded $2.25 million to Washington.
(SFC, 10/3/00, p.A4)(SFC, 5/6/06, p.A3)
2000 Patrick Henry College opened
in suburban Virginia. It was founded by Michael Farris: “Your calling
is to turn our nation into a Godly foundation.” In 2007 Hanna Rosin
authored “God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save
America.”
(Econ, 2/28/04, p.33)(SSFC, 9/2/07, p.M1)
2000 In Virginia Elizabeth Renee
Otte was sentenced to 5 years in prison for killing her month-old son
in a microwave in 1999. Experts said the she suffered from epilepsy and
that her seizures were followed by blackouts.
(SFC, 11/29/06, p.A8)
2000 A shipping concern in
Virginia, LISCR, helped Pres. Taylor procure weapons in violation of
the UN arms embargo. The Liberian International Ship and Corporate
Registry began managing Liberia’s shipping registry this year.
(WSJ, 10/24/01, p.A1)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.45)
2001 Feb 2, The House of Delegates
voted to express regret for the state’s selecting breeding policies
that had forced sterilizations on some 8,000 people since 1924.
(SSFC, 2/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Mar 18, An accident that
injured 17 shut down several heavily traveled highways around
Washington DC for several hours. The Virginia crash involved a Quebec
tour bus, a truck and two cars.
(AP, 3/19/02)
2001 May, Louis A Bloomfield, a
Univ. of Virginia physics professor, acting on tip from student; used
computer program to find 60 term papers out of 1,800 papers that were
nearly identical; findings raise questions about whether Internet has
increased cheating. 48 students were dismissed or had their degrees
revoked in the cheating scandal.
(http://tinyurl.com/yacr6w)(WSJ, 1/21/06, p.P8)
2001 Sep 11, 8:45 a.m. American
Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 carrying 92 people, crashed into the
North tower of the World Trade Center in NYC.
9:03 a.m. United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767
carrying 65 people, crashed into the South Tower of the WTC.
9:38 a.m. American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757
carrying 64 people, crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va.
9:40 a.m. The FAA grounded all domestic flights and
ordered all airborne craft to land immediately.
10:00 a.m. The South Tower of the WTC collapsed.
10:10 a.m. United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757
carrying 45 people, crashed southeast of Pittsburgh. The plane was
believed to be headed for Camp David.
10:29 a.m. The North Tower of the WTC collapsed.
5:25 p.m. Building 7 of the WTC complex collapsed.
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A6)
2001 Oct 25, A State Dept. mail
worker in Virginia was diagnosed with the inhalational form of anthrax.
(SFC, 10/26/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 6, In Virginia Democrat
Mark Warner defeated Republican Mark Earley in the race for governor.
(SFC, 11/7/01, p.A14)
2001 Dec 10, Robert Schwartz (57),
a DNA researcher, was found dead at his farmhouse in Leesburg. 3
friends in Maryland, Kyle Hulbert (18), Michael Pfohl (21) and
Katherine Inglis (19) were later charged in the murder committed with a
2-foot sword that left an "x" carved on the back of the neck. The
suspects were acquaintances of the victim’s daughter.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A8)
2001 Dec, A new $100 million,
1,536-bed federal penitentiary opened at Dot in Lee County.
(SFC, 12/19/01, p.E6)
2001 Dec, The World Bank approved
$175 million in financing for the construction of a $550 million power
project on the Nile River in Uganda by AES Corp. of Arlington, Va. The
African Development Bank was to provide an additional $55 million. Some
$370 million in loans were suspended in June, 2002, over an alleged
1999 bribe to an Ugandan official.
(WSJ, 7/3/02, p.A4)
2001 Federal agents in Virginia
and North Carolina conducted Operation Lightning Strike to curtail
moonshine production in the region.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A12)
2002 Jan 16, In Grundy, Va., Peter
Odighizuwa shot and killed the dean, a professor and a student at the
Appalachian School of Law following suspension due to low grades. He
was later found incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A3)(AP, 1/16/03)
2002 Jan 20, John Jackson,
Virginia bluesman, died at age 77.
(SFC, 1/22/02, p.A20)
2002 Feb 5, A federal grand jury
in Alexandria, Va., indicted John Walker Lindh on 10 charges, alleging
he was trained by Osama bin Laden's network and then conspired with the
Taliban to kill Americans. Lindh later pleaded guilty to lesser
offenses and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
(SFC, 2/6/02, p.A1)(AP, 2/5/07)
2002 Mar 18, Flooding hit
Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia following a 2nd day of heavy rains.
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A3)
2002 May 3, Flash flooding in
Appalachia killed 4 people. Virginia, W. Va. and Kentucky were hit at
their intersection.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A3)
2002 Aug 15, In Virginia the
bodies of Michael and Mary Short were found shot to death south of
Roanoke. Bones of their daughter Jennifer (9) were found Sep 25 in
Stoneville, NC, some 30 miles away.
(SFC, 8/17/02, p.A3)(SFC, 10/5/02, p.A5)
2002 Oct 4, John Walker Lindh, the
so-called "American Taliban," received a 20-year sentence after a
sobbing, halting plea for forgiveness before a federal judge in
Alexandria, Va.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2002 Oct 9, Dean Meyers (53) was
shot to death in Manassas, Va., in a shooting that appeared to be
linked to 6 previous sniper attacks in the area.
(SFC, 10/10/02, p.A1)(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.A4)
2002 Oct 11, Kenneth Bridges (53)
was shot and killed in Spotsylvania, Va., the 8th victim of the DC area
sniper. In 2004 Lee Boyd Malvo (19) in a plea bargain accepted life in
prison for the murder of Bridges.
(SFC, 10/12/02, p.A1)(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.A4)(SFC,
10/27/04, p.A3)
2002 Oct 14, Linda Franklin (47)
of Arlington, Va., was shot in the head and killed as she and her
husband loaded packages into their car outside a Home Depot at the
Seven Corners Shopping Center. She had worked as an analyst for the FBI.
(SFC, 10/15/02, p.A1)(AP, 10/15/02)
2002 Oct 19, In Ashland, Va.,
Jeffrey Hopper (37) was shot and seriously wounded in what appeared to
be another sniper attack. The sniper left a note that included a
request for $10 million and threats to focus on children.
(SSFC, 10/20/02, p.A3)(SFC, 10/23/02, p.A1)(AP,
10/19/07)
2003 Feb 20, Former Air Force
Master Sgt. Brian Patrick Regan was convicted in Alexandria, Va., of
offering to sell U.S. intelligence to Iraq and China but acquitted of
attempted spying for Libya. Regan was later sentenced to life without
parole.
(AP, 2/20/04)
2003 Apr 7, The US Supreme Court
voted 6-3 to uphold a 50-year-old Virginia law making it a crime to
burn a cross as an act of intimidation.
(AP, 4/7/04)
2003 Apr 29, The governor of
Virginia signed a tough antispam law that called for prison and asset
seizures.
(WSJ, 4/30/03, A1)
2003 Jul 13, Brenda Paz (17), a
federal witness, was found stabbed to death on the banks of Virginia’s
Shenandoah River. A federal jury convicted two members of the MS-13
street gang of her murder. MS-13 gang members wanted Paz dead for
cooperating with police and prosecutors in cases against MS-13 members
in Northern Virginia and Texas.
(Econ, 1/7/06, p.23)(http://tinyurl.com/8tlnm)
2003 Sep 19, Hurricane Isabel
knocked out power to more than 4.5 million people as it weakened into a
tropical storm and raced toward Canada after swamping tidal communities
along Chesapeake Bay. 21 of 36 storm victims were in Virginia.
(AP, 9/19/03)(AP, 9/20/03)(WSJ, 9/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 17, John Allen Muhammad
was convicted of masterminding the 2002 sniper attacks in the
Washington DC region.
(SFC, 11/18/03, p.A1)
2003 Nov 24, A Virginia jury
decided that John Allen Muhammad, convicted of masterminding the 2002
sniper attacks in the Washington DC region, should be executed.
(SFC, 11/25/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 11, A new 2nd home for
the National Air and Space Museum opened in Chantilly, Va., some 28
miles west of the original's home in Washington D.C.
(AP, 12/11/04)
2003 Dec 18, Lee Boyd Malvo (18)
was convicted in Virginia for his role in the 2002 sniper shootings.
(SFC, 12/19/03, p.A3)
2003 Dec 23, A Virginia jury
recommended a sentence of life in prison for Lee Boyd Malvo.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 The new National Air &
Space Museum annex at Dulles Int'l. Airport was scheduled for
completion. Steven F. Udvar-Hazy (53), a Hungarian-American and
president of the largest aircraft leasing company, donated $60 million
to the project in 1999.
(SFC, 9/30/99, p.A12)
2004 Jan 19, Gov. Warner said his
proposed budget and tax reform plan would revive some projects that
were dropped from a 6-year highway construction plan.
(USAT, 1/20/04, p.12A)
2004 Jan, A museum dedicated to
the photography of Winston Link (1915-2001) opened in Roanoke, Va. He
had spent the years 1955-1960 photographing the last steam railroad in
America, the Norfolk & Western RR.
(WSJ, 8/5/04, p.D8)
2004 Feb 20, In Virginia 1 person
won at least $230 million in the Mega Millions lottery, becoming the
biggest winner in the game's history.
(AP, 2/21/04)
2004 Feb 28, The Bow Mariner, a
tanker carrying 3.5 million gallons of ethanol, exploded and sank off
Virginia's Eastern Shore. Three crewmen were known dead and six others
were rescued. 18 crew members were left missing.
(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.A3)(SFC, 2/02/04, p.A3)
2004 Mar 9, John Allen Muhammad
(43) was sentenced to death in Manassas, Va., for his 2002 murder
rampage in the Washington DC area.
(SFC, 3/10/04, p.A3)
2004 Mar 10, Lee Boyd Malvo,
teenage sniper, was sentenced in Chesapeake, Va., to life in prison.
(AP, 3/10/05)
2004 Apr, Virginia legislators
mistakenly revived a Colonial-era law giving workers the right to take
Sunday off as a day of rest. In July Gov. Mark Warner signed a bill to
correct the error.
(USAT, 7/4/04, p.3A)
2004 Aug 31, Tropical Storm Gaston
flooded Richmond and other parts of central Virginia with a foot or
more of rain. Five people were killed.
(AP, 8/31/04)(WSJ, 9/1/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 24, A plane owned by
Hendrick Motorsports crashed in thick fog en route to a NASCAR race in
Martinsville, Va., killing all 10 people aboard, including the son,
brother and two nieces of owner Rick Hendrick.
(AP, 10/25/04)
2004 Nov 3, Jeremy Jaynes of North
Carolina became the first person in the US to be convicted of a felony
for sending unsolicited bulk email. He was charged in Virginia because
his emails went through an AOL server there. In 2008 the Virginia
Supreme Court declared the state’s antispam law unconstitutional and
reversed Jaynes’ conviction.
(WSJ, 9/13/08,
p.A2)(www.phonebusters.com/english/legal_2004_nov3.html)
2005 Feb 8, Virginia lawmakers
passed a bill authorizing a $50 fine for anyone who displays his or her
underpants in a “lewd or indecent manner.”
(SFC, 6/9/04, p.A3)
2005 Apr 26, A federal jury in
Virginia convicted Islamic scholar Ali al-Timini of urging followers to
join the Taliban and fight the US after the 9/11 attacks.
(WSJ, 4/27/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 13, In Virginia a federal
judge sentenced Ali Timini (41), a prominent Muslim spiritual leader,
to life in prison for inciting his followers for villent jihad against
the US. Timini was convicted in April.
(SFC, 7/14/05, p.A9)
2005 Jul 25, In Virginia 4 adult
Scout leaders from Alaska were killed on the opening day of their
Jamboree when a tent pole apparently struck a power line.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Sep 3, US Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist (80), 33 years on the Supreme Court died in
Arlington, Va. He oversaw the high court's conservative shift and
presided over the impeachment trial of President Clinton.
(AP, 9/4/05)
2005 Sep 5, Taylor Behl (17), a
Virginia Commonwealth University student, disappeared. Her body was
found in Mathews County, about 70 miles east of Richmond, a month
later. Behl’s body was found in a shallow grave with the help of photos
on Benjamin Fawley’s Web site. In 2006 Fawley (39) was sentenced to 30
years in prison for her death.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2005 Nov 8, Democratic Lt. Gov.
Tim Kaine won a solid victory in GOP-leaning Virginia, beating
Republican Jerry Kilgore by more than 5 percentage points.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 15, The FBI arrested
Candice R. Martinez, a 19-year-old woman, suspected of robbing four
Virginia banks while apparently talking on her cell phone.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 22, A federal jury in
Virginia found Ahmed Omar Abu Ali (24), a US citizen, guilty of
numerous charges to commit acts of terrorism. Abu Ali was arrested in
Medina in June 2003 as Saudi authorities were investigating a wave of
bombings. In 2008 a federal appeals court upheld the conviction, but
ordered a new sentencing hearing. In 2009 he was sentenced to life in
prison for plotting to kill Pres. George W. Bush.
(SFC, 11/23/05, p.A14)(SFC, 6/7/08, p.A3)(SFC,
7/27/09, p.A5)
2005 Nov 29, In Virginia Gov. Mark
Warner granted clemency to convicted killer Robin Lovitt, who faced
death for the 1998 killing of Clayton Dicks, a pool hall manager in
Arlington.
(SFC, 11/30/05, p.A16)
2006 Jan 1, A family of 4 was
murdered in Richmond, Va. [see Jan 7]
(SSFC, 1/8/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 6, A family of 3 was
murdered in Richmond, Va. [see Jan 7]
(SSFC, 1/8/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 7, Police in Richmond,
Va., arrested 2 men for the recent killing of 7 people. Ray Joseph
Dandridge (28) and Ricky Gavon Gray (28) were charged with conspiracy
to commit murder and auto theft.
(SSFC, 1/8/06, p.A3)
2006 May 3, Vernon Jackson (53),
owner of iGate, pleaded guilty in Alexandria, Virginia, to bribing Rep.
William Jefferson, D-La., with more than $400,000 to promote the
Kentucky’s firm’s high tech business in Africa between 2001 and 2005.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.A3)
2006 May 4, In Virginia US Judge
Leonie Brinkema sent Zacarias Moussaoui to prison for life, to "die
with a whimper," for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
He declared: "God save Osama bin Laden, you will never get him." The US
military released video footage of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in which the
al-Qaida leader was seen wearing American tennis shoes and unable to
operate his automatic rifle.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2006 Jun 29, East Coast rains,
which began over the weekend, have been blamed for five deaths in
Pennsylvania, four in Maryland, one in Virginia and three in New York.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Sep 9, In Virginia officials
of the Randolph-Macon Women’s College announced that men would be
admitted starting in 2007.
(SSFC, 9/10/06, p.A2)
2006 Oct 6, In Virginia opening
ceremonies were held for the new $13 million American Civil War Center
in Richmond’s former Civil War gun foundry.
(WSJ, 10/12/06, p.W13)
2006 Oct 7, In Virginia the Bush
family christened the USS George H.W. Bush, the nuclear-powered
aircraft carrier named after the 82-year-old former president.
(AP, 10/7/06)
2006 Oct 7, Michelle Gardner-Quinn
(21), a Univ. of Vermont senior from Arlington, Va., was reported
missing. After chasing leads for nearly a week, police
investigating her disappearance got a break when a group of hikers
spotted a body in a rocky ravine. A suspect, Brian Rooney (36), was
arrested Oct 13 on unrelated charges of sex abuse in two other Vermont
counties.
(AP, 10/14/06)
2006 Oct 14, Pres. Bush dedicated
the new $30 million US Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Va. The
memorial, designed to evoke the “bomb-burst maneuver of the
Thunderbirds, was the last major work of architect James Ingo Freed
(d.2005).
(SSFC, 10/15/06, p.A16)
2006 Oct 31, In Roanoke, Virginia,
Sheriff Frank Cassell and 12 of his uniformed employees were indicted
in a racketeering case that claims drugs seized from criminals were
being resold, sometimes out of a sergeant's home.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 9, Virginia Republican
Sen. George Allen conceded his defeat to Democrat James Web. Sen.
Conrad Burns conceded the Montana Senate race to Democrat Jon Tester.
(SFC, 11/10/06, p.A17)
2006 Nov 10, Pres. Bush dedicated
the new National Museum of the Marine Corp. in Virginia.
(SFC, 11/11/06, p.A4)
2006 Dec 16, A rocket carrying two
experimental satellites blasted off in the first launch from the
mid-Atlantic region's commercial spaceport. The Virginia Commercial
Space Flight Authority, a state agency, built the commercial launch pad
in 1998 on land leased from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility to try to
help bring jobs to the economically depressed Eastern Shore region.
Maryland later joined the venture.
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 31, Seymour Martin Lipset
(1922), renowned social scientist, died in Virginia. His books included
“Political Man” (1960). Lipset had served as a political sociologist
and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and as the Hazel Professor
of Public Policy at George Mason University.
(SSFC, 1/7/07,
p.B6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Martin_Lipset)
2007 Feb 1, The National Academy
of Engineering announced that the 2007 Grainger Challenge Prize for
Sustainability would go to Abul Hussam, a chemistry professor at George
Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He had developed an inexpensive,
easy-to-make system for filtering arsenic from well water, and planned
to use most of the $1 million engineering prize to distribute the
filters to needy communities around the world.
(AP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 24, The Virginia General
Assembly, meeting in Richmond on the grounds of the former Confederate
Capitol, voted unanimously to express "profound regret" for the state's
role in slavery.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Mar 14, A US judge in
Virginia ruled that Sudan should pay damages to the families of 17
sailors killed in the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.
(Reuters, 3/14/07)
2007 Apr 8, In the Philippines
Julia Campbell (40), American Peace Corps volunteer from Fairfax, Va.,
was last seen in the town of Banaue in Ifugao province. Her body was
found April 18 in a shallow grave near Batad village. In 2008 Juan
Duntugan was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 40 years in
prison without parole.
(AP, 4/14/07)(AP, 4/18/07)(SFC, 4/19/07, p.A8)(AP,
6/30/08)
2007 Apr 16, Shootings in a dorm
and classroom at Virginia Tech left 32 people dead. Two people died in
a dorm room, and 31 others were killed in Norris Hall, including the
gunman, who put a bullet in his head. At least 15 people were hurt,
some seriously. Two professors from India and Israel were among the
dead at the Virginia Tech shooting, the deadliest in US history. The
gunman was a South Korean national named Cho Seung-Hui (23). Cho was an
undergraduate student in his senior year majoring in English who lived
on campus. His residence was in Centerville, Virginia, and he had
resident alien status. Between shootings Seung-Hui took time to e-mail
videos, photos and writings to NBC. Virginia law allowed Cho to buy one
gun each month. In 2009 Lucinda Roy, head of English at Virginia Tech,
authored “No Right To Remain Silent: The Tragedy at Virginia Tech.”
(AP, 4/16/07)(AP, 4/17/07)(AFP, 4/17/07)(WSJ,
4/19/07, p.A1)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.27)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.32)
2007 Apr 20, The family of
Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho, who shot and killed 32 people and
himself, said they felt ‘‘hopeless, helpless and lost,’’ and ‘‘never
could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.’’
(AP, 4/20/08)
2007 May 10, In Virginia the maker
of the powerful painkiller OxyContin and three of its current and
former executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about the
drug's risk of addiction. Purdue Pharma L.P., its president, top lawyer
and former chief medical officer will pay $634.5 million in fines for
claiming the drug was less addictive and less subject to abuse than
other pain medications.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 13, President Bush made a
pilgrimage to the site of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia to mark
the 400th anniversary of its founding.
(AP, 5/13/08)
2007 Jul 1, Virginia became home
of the $3,000 traffic ticket. In an effort to raise money for road
projects, the state started to hit residents who commit serious traffic
offenses with huge civil penalties. Beginning today Virginia added new
civil charges to traffic fines. They range from $750 to $3,000 and will
be added to existing fines and court costs.
(USAT, 7/1/07)
2007 Jul 17, In Virginia Michael
Vick, quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, was indicted by a federal
grand jury along with 3 others on charges related to competitive dog
fighting. In Dec. Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for his
role in a dogfighting conspiracy that involved gambling and killing pit
bulls.
(SFC, 7/19/07, p.A6)(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Sep 5, In Virginia US Rep.
Paul Gillmor (68), a Republican from Ohio, was found dead in his
apartment in Arlington.
(SFC, 9/6/07, p.A7)
2007 Oct 6, US Representative Jo
Ann Davis (57), Virginia’s first Republican woman elected to Congress,
died of breast cancer.
(SSFC, 10/7/07, p.A5)
2007 Oct 17, The US Supreme Court
stopped the execution of Virginia death row inmate Christopher Scott
Emmet (36). Legal experts said the move signals a nationwide halt to
lethal injections until the court decides in 2008 whether the procedure
violates constitutional standards.
(SFC, 10/18/07, p.A15)
2007 Nov 10, Miami ended its
70-year stay at the famed Orange Bowl with the biggest shutout loss in
the stadium's history, a 48-0 rout to Virginia.
(AP, 11/10/08)
2008 Feb 12, Barack Obama won 75%
of the vote in Washington DC, nearly two-thirds in Virginia and
approximately 60% in Maryland. McCain's victory in Virginia was a
relatively close one, the result of an outpouring of religious
conservatives who backed Mike Huckabee.
(AP, 2/13/08)
2008 Feb 29, A divided Virginia
Supreme Court affirmed the nation's first felony conviction for illegal
spamming, ruling that Virginia's anti-spamming law does not violate
free-speech rights.
(AP, 2/29/08)
2008 Apr 1, Virginia’s Gov.
Timothy Kaine ordered a moratorium on executions until the US Supreme
Court decides whether lethal injections are constitutional.
(SFC, 4/3/08, p.A6)
2008 Apr 10, In Virginia a jury
convicted Rev. James Bevel (71), a noted civil rights figure, of incest
after concluding he had sex with his teenage daughter 15 years ago. His
had daughter testified that Bevel had begun molesting her at age 6.
(SFC, 4/11/08, p.A4)
2008 Apr 10, Most families in the
April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech mass shootings agreed to an $11 million
state settlement.
(WSJ, 4/11/08, p.A2)
2008 Apr 27, It was made public
that Mars Inc. of McLean, Va., together with Berkshire Hathaway had
agreed to acquire Wrigley Co. of Chicago, Ill., for about $23 billion.
(WSJ, 4/29/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 28, In southeast Virginia
6 destructive tornadoes resulted in much devastation and over 200
injuries but no deaths. Gov. Timothy Kaine declared a state of
emergency in the hardest hit areas.
(AP, 4/29/08)(SFC, 4/30/08, p.A3)
2008 Sep 6, Tropical Storm Hanna
blew hard and dumped rain in eastern North Carolina and Virginia, but
caused little damage beyond isolated flooding and power outages as it
quickly headed north toward New England.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 11, Pres. Bush attended
the dedication of a new memorial at the Pentagon in honor of 9/11
attacks in 2001. In NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg led a ceremony attended
by presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.A3)
2008 Oct 9, Virginia’s Gov.
Timothy M. Kaine ordered 570 state employee layoffs, cut college
funding by at least 5%, ordered some older prisons closed and postponed
state employee raises to deal with a $2.5 billion fiscal crises.
(WSJ, 10/10/08, p.A6)
2009 Jan 16, Circuit City, a
bankrupt electronics retailer based in Richmond, Va., said it failed to
find a buyer and will liquidate its 567 US stores resulting in the loss
of some 30,000 jobs. Circuit city’s last day of sales was on March 8.
(SFC, 1/17/09, p.C1)(SFC, 3/9/09, p.B1)
2009 Jan 16, Kellogg Co. of Battle
Creek, Mich., recalled 16 products containing peanut butter due to
possible salmonella contamination as federal officials confirmed
contamination at a Georgia facility that ships peanut products to 85
food companies. On Jan 21 federal health authorities confirmed that
peanut butter and paste made by a Virginia company were the sole
sources of the outbreak. The Blakely, Ga., facility was owned by Peanut
Corp. of America, based in Lynchburg, Va.
(SFC, 1/17/09, p.A2)(WSJ, 1/22/08, p.A4)
2009 Jan 28, President Barack
Obama signed requests from Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Arkansas
Gov. Mike Beebe for federal emergency declarations as crews worked
around the clock to resurrect power lines downed by thick ice in both
states. Since the storm began building on Jan 26, the weather has been
blamed for at least six deaths in Texas, four in Arkansas, three in
Virginia, six in Missouri, two in Oklahoma, and one each in Indiana and
Ohio.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Feb 13, The Lynchburg,
Va.-based Peanut Corp. of America, at the heart of a national
salmonella outbreak, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in US Bankruptcy
Court.
(AP, 2/14/09)
2009 Feb 19, Virginia’s House of
Delegates voted 60-39 on a partial ban on smoking in bars and
restaurants. The Senate had voted 27-13 earlier on the bill, which was
supported by Gov. Timothy Kaine.
(WSJ, 2/20/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 9, Virginia Gov. Tim
Kaine signed a bill that generally restricts smoking in bars and
restaurants to separate rooms that have their own ventilation.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 19, High Okun, a Miami
businessman, was convicted in Virginia of bilking nearly 600 people
across the country out of $126 million.
(SFC, 3/20/09, p.A8)
2009 Mar 29, The mysterious boom
and flash of light seen over parts of Virginia was not a meteor, but
actually exploding space junk from the second stage of a Russian Soyuz
rocket, launched March 26, falling back to Earth.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511501,00.html)
2009 May 6, Virginia police found
former NASCAR driver Kevin Grubb (31) dead from an apparent
self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Grubb was suspended from
NASCAR indefinitely in 2006 because he refused to submit to a random
drug test following the Busch Series race at Richmond International
Raceway.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 23, It was reported that
millions of bats in at least 7 US states (Connecticut, New York,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia) have
died from white-nose syndrome, a fungal diseases.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.36)
2009 Jun 19, Federal prosecutors
in Virginia indicted Texas financier Allen Stanford (59) and 4 others
on fraud and other charges in connection with a multi-billion Ponzi
scheme.
(SFC, 6/20/09, p.C2)
2009 Jun 27, In Roanoke, Virginia,
William Ronald Carter (56), a retired tire factory worker, shot and
killed his wife Bonnie (56) and a son (29) and summoned home another
son Timothy (22), who was shot but survived. Carter then set the house
on fire and killed himself.
(SFC, 6/30/09, p.A5)
2009 Aug 5, Federal jurors in
Alexandria, Va., convicted former Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson on
11 0f 16 counts that included bribery, racketeering and money
laundering. The next day jurors said Jefferson must forfeit $470,000 in
bribery receipts.
(SFC, 8/6/09, p.A6)(SFC, 8/7/09, p.A5)
2009 Sep 18, In Virginia the
bodies of four people were found at a Longwood University professor's
home near campus in Farmville, about 50 miles west of Richmond. Richard
Alden Samuel McCroskey III (20) was arrested the next day as he tried
to catch a flight back to his home in Castro Valley, California.
McCroskey had recorded songs that spoke of death, murder and mutilation
under the name Syko Sam. His MySpace Web page said he has only been
rapping for a few months but has been a fan for years of the horrorcore
genre. The victims included his girlfriend, Emma Niederbrock (16), her
mother, Prof. Debra Kelley (53), her father, Pastor Mark Niederbrock
(50), and Emma’s best friend, Melanie Wells (18).
(AP, 9/20/09)(SFC, 9/22/09, p.A12)(SFC, 9/23/09,
p.D1)
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