Portal:Virginia

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Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The state's capital is Richmond and its most populous city is Virginia Beach, though its most populous subdivision is Fairfax County, part of Northern Virginia, where slightly over a third of Virginia's population of 8.7 million live.

Eastern Virginia is part of the Atlantic Plain, and the Middle Peninsula forms the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Central Virginia lies predominantly in the Piedmont, the foothill region of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which cross the western and southwestern parts of the state. The fertile Shenandoah Valley fosters the state's most productive agricultural counties, while the economy in Northern Virginia is driven by technology companies and U.S. federal government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency. Hampton Roads is also the site of the region's main seaport and Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base. (Full article...)

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The Battle of Great Bridge was fought December 9, 1775, in the area of Great Bridge, Virginia, early in the American Revolutionary War. The victory by Continental Army and militia forces led to the departure of Governor Lord Dunmore (pictured) and any remaining vestiges of British power from the Colony of Virginia during the early days of the conflict.

Following increasing political and military tensions in early 1775, both Dunmore and rebellious Whig leaders recruited troops and engaged in a struggle for available military supplies. The struggle eventually focused on Norfolk, where Dunmore had taken refuge aboard a Royal Navy vessel. Dunmore's forces had fortified one side of a critical river crossing south of Norfolk at Great Bridge, while Whig forces had occupied the other side. In an attempt to break up the Whig gathering, Dunmore ordered an attack across the bridge, which was decisively repulsed. William Woodford, the Whig commander at the battle, described it as "a second Bunker's Hill affair".

Shortly thereafter, Norfolk, at the time a Tory center, was abandoned by Dunmore and the Tories, who fled to navy ships in the harbor. Whig-occupied Norfolk was destroyed on January 1, 1776 in an action begun by Dunmore and completed by Whig forces.

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General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (1880 – 1964) was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army who was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign. He was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the U.S. Army, and the only man ever to become a field marshal in the Philippine Army.

Raised in a military family, he graduated top of the class at United States Military Academy at West Point. MacArthur was decorated for his service in Western Front during World War I, served as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, was Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and retired from the army in 1937. MacArthur was recalled to active duty in 1941 as commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East, countering the invasion of the Philippines by the Japanese. MacArthur's forces were soon compelled to withdraw to Bataan, where they held out until May 1942, escaping to Australia where MacArthur became Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area. After more than two years of fighting in the Pacific, he fulfilled a promise to return to the Philippines. He officially accepted Japan's surrender on 2 September 1945, and oversaw the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. As the effective ruler of Japan, he oversaw sweeping economic, political and social changes. He led the United Nations Command in the Korean War until he was removed from command by President Harry S. Truman on 11 April 1951. He and his wife are buried in Norfolk, Virginia.

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This month in Virginia history

painting of men along a line of artillery — Artillery at the Battle of First Manassas

July 18, 1774: The Fairfax Resolves are adopted in the lead up to the American Revolution.
July 21, 1861: The Battle of First Manassas (pictured), is fought in Northern Virginia, becoming the first major land battle of the American Civil War.
July 30, 1619: The Virginia House of Burgesses (predecessor of the Virginia General Assembly) first meets in Jamestown, marking the beginning of representative government in the future United States.
July 30, 1864: The Battle of the Crater results from an attempt to break the Confederate trenches near Petersburg using an explosives-filled tunnel.

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Mount Vernon, the plantation home of George Washington in Fairfax County, Virginia.

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... that in the span of three days, a Florida man was approved by bankruptcy courts to buy TV stations in Roanoke and Lynchburg, Virginia, and then arrested on charges of laundering millions in drug money?
... that slave owner John Custis petitioned the Governor of Virginia to manumit a slave child whom he had fathered?
... that part of West Virginia's Princeton–Deepwater District railway was so steep that only shortened coal trains could ascend it?
... that Jane C. Beck traveled to Virginia, West Africa, and England to research the family history of Daisy Turner for her 2015 book Daisy Turner's Kin: An African American Family Saga?
... that an exhibition hall for the 1939 New York World's Fair later hosted athletic events at a historically Black university in Virginia?
... that Caesar Tarrant remained enslaved after his service as a boat pilot in the American Revolutionary War until the state of Virginia purchased his freedom in 1789?