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 8.72 million live.

The Blue Ridge Mountains cross the western and southwestern parts of the state. The state's central region lies predominantly in the Piedmont. Eastern Virginia is part of the Atlantic Plain, and the Middle Peninsula forms the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. 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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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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John Floyd (April 24, 1783 – August 17, 1837) was a Virginia politician and soldier. He represented Virginia in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 25th Governor of Virginia. During his career in the House of Representatives, Floyd was an advocate of settling the Oregon Territory, unsuccessfully arguing on its behalf from 1820 until he left Congress in 1829; the area did not become a territory of the United States until 1848.

In 1832, Floyd received votes for the Presidency of the United States, running in the Nullifier Party. He carried South Carolina and its 11 electoral votes. While governor of Virginia, the Nat Turner slave rebellion occurred and Floyd initially supported emancipation of slavery, but eventually went with the majority. His term as governor saw economic prosperity for the state. He is the namesake of Floyd County, Virginia.

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This month in Virginia history

May 2, 1863: During the Battle of Chancellorsville, General Stonewall Jackson is shot behind his own lines, and dies several days later.
May 5–7, 1864: The Battle of the Wilderness is the first engagement between Generals Grant and Lee.
May 14, 1607: Jamestown is founded on an island in the James River, upstream of the Chesapeake Bay. (Historic Jamestowne, pictured)
May 15, 1776: Virginia declares itself independent of the British Empire, prior to the general Declaration of Independence made later that year
May 23, 1610: The Third Supply arrives in Jamestown with desperately-needed provisions and new colonists, enabling continued survival of the colony

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The equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia

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... that by September 29, 1864, the 23rd Virginia Infantry Battalion only had 78 enlisted men present for duty?
... that three schools in Virginia were named after Daniel Webster Davis?
... that a Virginia TV station had to take out title loans to pay its staff?
... that the 1988 closure of WLEE, once one of the top radio stations in Richmond, Virginia, also took WBBL, a church station in existence for nearly 65 years, off the air for good?
... that a Virginia radio station built a house to raise money for operations?
... that West Virginia nursing professor Christine Elizabeth Abrahamsen wrote science-fiction and Gothic novels under the pseudonyms Christabel and Kathleen Westcott?