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. With an area of over 42,774 sq mi (110,780 km²), it is the 34th-largest state by area. With a population of 8.8 million, it is the twelveth-most populous and fifteenth-most densely populated state. Virginia borders Kentucky to the west; Tennessee to the west-south; North Carolina to the south; West Virginia to the west-north; and Maryland to the north. More than one-third of Virginia’s population lives in Northern Virginia, which includes Fairfax County - the most populous jurisdiction in the state.

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. 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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Virginia House is a country house on a hillside overlooking the James River in the Windsor Farms neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia.

The house was constructed from the materials of the 16th century Warwick Priory in Warwickshire, England, and shipped over and reassembled, completed several months before the stock market crash of 1929. Virginia House is in the Tudor architectural style but incorporates a range of designs from other English houses and has modern facilities such as seven baths and central heating.

Virginia House belonged to Alexander and Virginia Weddell, an interior designer who had created a lavish interior for the house, salvaging many materials from the priory and other old English manor houses and adding further elegant English and Spanish antiques, oriental carpets, silks and silverware. Today Virginia House is operated by the Virginia Historical Society as a museum, although it largely remains as it was in the 1930s except for gradual crumbling sandstone replacement. Immediately to the west of the property is Agecroft Hall.

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George Rogers Clark (1752 – 1818) was a soldier from Virginia and the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Kentucky (then part of Virginia) militia throughout much of the war. Clark is best known for his celebrated captures of Kaskaskia (1778) and Vincennes (1779), which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory. Because the British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Clark has often been hailed as the "Conqueror of the Old Northwest."

Clark's military achievements all came before his 30th birthday. Afterwards he led militia in the opening engagements of the Northwest Indian War, but was accused of being drunk on duty. Despite his demand for a formal investigation into the accusations, he was disgraced and forced to resign. He left Kentucky to live on the Indiana frontier. Never fully reimbursed by Virginia for his wartime expenditures, Clark spent the final decades of his life evading creditors, and living in increasing poverty and obscurity. He was involved in two failed conspiracies to open the Spanish-controlled Mississippi River to American traffic. After suffering a stroke and losing his leg, Clark was aided in his final years by family members, including his younger brother William, one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Clark died of a stroke on February 13, 1818.

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This month in Virginia history

January 1, 1776: The Burning of Norfolk
January 16, 1786: The Virginia General Assembly adopts the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, an event celebrated annually as National Religious Freedom Day.
January 19, 1807: Future general Robert E. Lee is born at Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County; annually commemorated on the state holiday Lee–Jackson Day (observance date shifts annually).
January 20, 1775: The Fincastle Resolutions are adopted in the lead up to the American Revolution.
January 21, 1960: As part of Project Mercury, Little Joe 1B is launched from Wallops Flight Facility, crewed by Miss Sam (pictured), a Rhesus monkey.

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Credit: Jovianeye

Terminal at Dulles International Airport in Loudon County, Virginia, designed by architect Eero Saarinen

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... that enrollment at a school for African-American students in Virginia grew from 14 pupils to 1,300 in its first ten years?
... that chef Victor Albisu created a bulgogi taco that honors the Koreatown neighborhood of his hometown of Annandale, Virginia?
... that John F. Kennedy's pollster found many West Virginia voters concerned that a Pope in the White House would arrive by transatlantic tunnel?
... that a Virginia TV station broadcast an all-Black variety show on its first day in 1950?
... that a 1905 steam-powered pump was assembled on-site in Virginia with its housing constructed around it?
... that when Edgewood was built in Stanleytown, Virginia, its Greek Revival style was unknown to most people in the area?