This week in 1912, Virginia experienced a debilitating six-week cold snap, the longest and most severe in state history. Snow and plummeting temperatures contributed to train wrecks, water shortages, and even exploding water tanks.

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This week in 1936, as a part of a national program collecting the stories of former enslaved people, reporter Claude Anderson talked with 87-year old Richard Slaughter. Slaughter had been born into an enslaved family in Virginia, but fled to freedom during the Civil War. During the interview, Slaughter recalled an encounter with none other than Abraham Lincoln.

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This week in 1864, the Union army destroyed the Confederate salt mines in Saltville, a blow to the Confederate army that marked a turning point in the Civil War.

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This week in 1974, Mills Godwin became the first and only Virginia governor elected for two (nonconsecutive) terms -- and he ran on different political tickets each time. He's often remembered for bolstering Virginia's public schools and creating the state's community college system. However, he played a darker role in Virginia's education policy as well. As senator and lieutenant governor, Godwin had been instrumental in the massive resistance laws that prevented school integration.

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This week in 1769...  when the House of Burgesses sponsored at ball at Williamsburg’s capitol building, Virginian women shunned fine Bristish fabrics and showed up in homespun gowns. This was seen as a patriotic act of defiance, and inspired women all over America to wear homespun in protest of British policies.

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This week in 1710... a prominent Virginia politician meets a grisly end. Daniel Parke quickly ascended to the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Governor's Council, before being awarded governorship of the Leeward Islands. But despite his political successes, his difficult personality won him enemies.

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This week in 1786... James Lafayette submitted a petition for his freedom from enslavement. During the American Revolution, Lafayette's espionage helped lead Americans to victory against the British. But despite his wartime contributions, the Virginia General Assembly rejected his petition. It was only after enlisting the help of the Marquis de Lafayette that James Lafayette was granted his freedom.

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This week in 1949... as automobiles took over America's roads, Richmond officials destroyed the last of their electric streetcars, which had roamed Richmond's streets for more than 60 years.

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This week in 1805... a year and a half after leaving St. Louis, Virginians Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" reached the Pacific Ocean.

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This week in 1775... Lord Dunmore promised freedom to all indentured servants and enslaved people who fought for the British against the American revolutionaries.

This week in 1870... Virginia created a state-wide system of free public schools.

This week in 1867, Unionist John B. Eastham resigns just days after his election to the Constitutional Convention in Richmond.

This week in 1944... In MMiddlesex County, Virginia, Irene Morgan refuses to sit at the back of the bus.

This week in 1861, Richmond opened Chimborazo Hospital. With 150 buildings and capacity of up to 3600 patients, it was the largest hospital in the south at the time.

This week in 1842... George and Rebecca Latimer escaped slavery in Virginia. Their story and the challenges they faced inspired the 1843 Liberty Law, which forbid Massachusetts officers to arrest, detain, or deliver any fugitive slave back to their enslaver.

This week in 1856... Eyre Crowe's illustrations of Richmond auction houses spread awareness of the horrors of the domestic slave trade.

This week in 1893... after a white woman made allegations against him, Thomas Smith became targeted by a mob of white people in Roanoke. Smith's name is engraved on a tablet at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Birmingham, Alabama. Learn more about the Memorial, and the brutal history of sanctioned violence against African Americans, at their website: museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial.

This week in 1663... a group of nine indentured servants attempted to kidnap the Governor to demand their freedom. But things did not go according to plan.

This week in 1881... The Monticello Wine Company thrived as one of the largest and most prestigious wineries in the South. As business boomed and vintage's won awards, no one could have foreseen such a fiery disaster in the company's future.

This week in 1768... Virginia was in need of a new governor and Narbonne Berkeley, the baron of Botetourt, saw his chance to move up in the world. Despite his allegiance to the Crown, Berkley was the man of the people and quickly rose to local-celebrity status amongst Virginians.

This week in 1864... During the Civil War, the sleepy town of City Point, Virginia became the main supply depot and headquarters for the Union Army. This drew the unwanted attention of the Confederate secret service, who tasked a special agent to wreak as much havoc as possible.

This week in 1907... the state of Virginia honored the 300th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement. In celebration, a grand exposition was held to showcase the artistic and scientific achievements of era. A special appearance by Booker T. Washington helped highlight the voices and history of Black creators.

This week in 1916... Spottswood Robinson III excelled beyond measure as a student at Howard Law School. But graduating at the top of his class and setting a record for the highest grade point average was just a taste of his success yet to come.

This is a special edition of This Week in Virginia History produced for the Cville Puzzle Hunt to be held in Charlottesville on Saturday, August 27, 2022. More info at CvillePuzzleHunt.com.

This week in 1962… Sarah Lee Fain was a woman of firsts. She began her civic career as a teacher in Norfolk and joined the Leagues of Women Voters in 1920. After some encouragement from her friends to run for public office, Sarah's political career took off.

Union General John Pope was well known for his bold and aggressive war tactics. When Abraham Lincoln asked Pope to take charge of the Army of Virginia, the general was more than willing to oblige. But just as he took command, Pope's luck took a turn for the worst.

Grace Sherwood was a midwife, a healer, and a widow. In colonial Virginia, this was a risky combination. As a result, a simple dispute with her neighbors soon put her reputation and her life in grave danger.

This week in 1861... 10th President John Tyler was an avid and public supporter of slavery. Tyler believed that the institution of slavery could be remedied by its expansion to the western territories. In the years following his presidency, Tyler fought viscously for state sovereignty and the rights of slaveholders.

This week in 1893... It was a man’s world at the University of Virginia, but times were changing. Caroline Preston Davis didn’t like the status quo and was determined to make her presence known as an accomplished math scholar.

This week in 1699... Jamestown had been the seat of power since its founding in 1607, but for the House of Burgesses, the smoldering and disease ridden town had become simply unbearable. Seeking a safer, healthier place to govern their budding nation, they set up shop temporarily at Middle Plantation. The end result was the birth of Williamsburg, Virginia.

This week in 1834... Catherine was a free Black woman who owned a bit of land near the University. One evening some rowdy students smashed flower pots and tried to break into her home. At the time, the faculty of the University turned a blind eye towards the incident, but today, Foster's existence is forever memorialized on Grounds.

This week in 1961... You’ve probably seen the famous photograph of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the cell bars in the Birmingham jail. But who was the man behind the camera? He was one of the most influential leaders of the Civil Rights movement and an avid advocate for the inclusion of Black history in public school curriculum.

This week in 1912... Floyd Allen was the head of a clannish mountain family in Carroll County who had a reputation for moonshining, feuding, and violence. When the time finally came for Floyd to face his history of misdemeanors in court, the Allen family was determined to not go down without a fight.

This week in 1864... She was the siren of the Shenandoah. The Cleopatra of the Secession. Teenager Belle Boyd's passion for the cause led her to become an informal spy for the Confederacy during the Civil War. As a informant, Belle employed her innocent looks and girlish charms, slipping out of Union hands time and time again.

This week in 1869... After emancipation, James Holmes rose to soaring new heights. As a politician, he advocated for free public schools and the right to vote for African American men. But these radical reforms prompted ridicule from white conservatives back in his hometown of Charlotte County. Holmes began to fear for his life.

This week in 1893... Sarah Garland Boyd Jones grew up among Richmond's Black elite. As a teacher, she could not ignore the medical disparities in the Black community as compared to the plethora of resources and care offered to the white population. She packed her bags, moved to Washington, D.C., and decided to make a change.

This week in 1956... Irene Langhorne knew she was destined for greatness. Her stars aligned one fateful evening at Delmonico’s restaurant in New York where she met the famous illustrator Charles Dana Gibson. What followed was a passionate love that spurned one of history's best known illustrations of the modern Victorian woman.

This week in 1950... Luther Porter Jackson's love for asking questions led him to become one of the most important scholars of African American history in Virginia. As a teacher, Jackson became aware of the racial stereotypes and Lost Cause narratives permeating the South at the time. In response, he became determined to unearth the stories of Black America.

This week in 1865... After a crushing defeat in Petersburg, General Lee’s battered Confederate troops retreated south to North Carolina. But General Ulysses S. Grant wasn't done yet - he was determined to squash the rebels once and for all. The Union forces chased after the Confederate army, seeking out Lee's official surrender.

This week in 1959... The Brown v. Board decision had so angered Southside Virginia political leaders that they formed the white supremacist group “The Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberty.” Their ultimate goal was to defeat public school integration. Most Virginians wanted to move past the segregation crisis that had roiled the state for years, but the Defenders decided to make one last stand.

This week in 1622... Ever since Pocahontas married John Rolfe, the Native Americans and English had been at a relative peace with each one another. But then, the tobacco trade exploded. As settlers' plantations began to encroach on Native land, Chief Opechancanough and The Powhatan Confederacy devised a plan to push the English back.

This week in 1781... The 23-year old Marquis de Lafayette had spent a year drumming up French support for the American Revolution. And now he was back in America, full of revolutionary fervor and ready to lead French troops in Virginia.

This week in 1862... After Virginia seceded from the Union, retreating Federal forces scuttled and sank ships in Portsmouth harbor. They didn’t want the ships to fall into Confederate hands. But one did anyway. It was the USS Merrimac. Confederate forces raised it from its watery grave. When the Federal navy heard about the new Confederate threat to Union ships, they responded with their own ironclad: the USS Monitor. These two ships were on a collision course for Hampton Roads...

This week in 1888... The Rev. William Washington Browne worked to transform Richmond's black community. It began with a bank. Browne knew that a Black bank needed to be run by Blacks. Browne applied for and received a charter for the first Black bank in the United States. A year later the bank opened.

This week in 1864... Federal Colonel Ulric Dahlgren felt it was his duty to contribute more to the war effort. He and Brigadier General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick devised a plan to invade Richmond and free Union prisoners there. But nothing went according to plan.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 threatened self-emancipated Black people in the northern states. The federal law required the return of escaped slaves from one state to another. And one of the first people caught in its wide net was Shadrach Minkins.

Robert Pleasants was a man of action. He lived his beliefs. As a Quaker, that meant being an anti-slavery activist. So when the Virginia General Assembly debated a bill to provide for public schools Pleasants picked up his pen to write to Thomas Jefferson.

For years, Thomas Jefferson’s grandson Jeff Randolph and his brother-in-law Charles Bankhead had been at loggerheads. Eyewitness accounts differ as to who threw the first blow, but one thing is for sure: Charles stabbed his brother-in-law twice and seriously wounded him.

War fervor was in full swing when the U.S. declared war on Spain in 1898. More than 800 Black Virginians formed the 6th Virginia Volunteer Regiment. The regiment dealt with racism throughout its training, and by the end of the year, things had gone very downhill.

This week in 1872…The “Lost Cause” narrative gathered steam. The chapel at Washington & Lee University was packed with a crowd gathered to hear Confederate general Jubal Early deliver his eulogy on Robert E. Lee. For two and a half hours Early hit on every point of the burgeoning “Lost Cause” narrative.

Thomas Jefferson’s administration was itching to settle beyond the Mississippi River. The plan was simple. James Monroe would go to Paris and try to buy the City of New Orleans from Napoleon. He was authorized to spend $10 million. After a quick boat ride across the Atlantic Monroe reached Paris in April. There he learned that Napoleon had a different idea.

Virginia officially became part of the United States when it ratified the Constitution in 1788. For the next 200 years, only men represented Virginia’s citizens in the U.S. Congress. Until this week in 1993 when Leslie Byrnes became the first woman from Virginia elected to Congress.

This week in 1811... The day after Christmas began with merriment. The Richmond Theatre scheduled two full-length plays to delight the city’s residents. But the theatre was a disaster waiting to happen.

Edith Maxwell came home late one night to find her angry father waiting up. A scuffle ensued. Edith struck her father with her high heeled slipper and he died. She was arrested for murder and became a national sensation overnight.

Martha Washington sat at the end of the curtained bed. She watched the labored breathing of her husband. In the hallway three doctors discussed George’s serious condition in muffled voices. They didn’t think he would last much longer.

This week in 1861... On the eve of the Civil War, the University of Virginia was a Confederate cradle. Even before Virginia left the Union, students broke into the Rotunda to raise the Confederate flag. Students rushed to join the various volunteer regiments that sprang up on grounds. One of these groups became Company G of the 59th Virginia Infantry Regiment. But things didn't go so well.

This week in 1790... The end of the American Revolution brought forth a freedom fervor, but slavery was heavily entrenched in Commonwealth. Plans for outright abolition fell flat. Enter Ferdinando Fairfax, one of the largest slaveholders in his county, who wrote and promoted a plan for gradual emancipation.

He was the terror of the colonial coastline. Better known as the pirate Blackbeard, Edward Teach attacked ships from Virginia to Jamaica. And Virginia Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood was tired of it. So when the pirate set up a hideout around North Carolina’s Okracoke Island, Spotswood decided to act.

It started as a typical workday for William Breedlove and William Chandler. The free Black men operated a ferry boat across the Rappahannock River. One day, they ferried a black man who turned out to be an escaped slave. And according to Virginia law the penalty for helping a slave escape was to be sold into slavery.

This week in 1828... Virginia-born former slave Lott Cary had saved up and bought his freedom. He felt it was his mission in life to preach the Gospel to Africans. So when the American Colonization Society established the colony of Liberia, Cary emigrated there with other Black families from Virginia.

This week in 1913... A sea of humanity blocked the streets around Richmond’s First Baptist Church. They hoped to catch a glimpse of Daniel Webster Davis’ funeral cortege. Davis was a giant in Richmond’s African American community -- a lifelong educator, organization builder, poet, and pastor.

This week in 1921... Swarms of Confederate veterans made their way into Charlottesville. It was the annual Virginia veterans’ reunion replete with picnics and receptions. And this year had an extra draw -- the unveiling of a new monument to General Stonewall Jackson in the newly minted, whites-only Jackson Park.

This week in 1851... Joseph Abrams walked up to the Richmond courthouse. Today he was manumitting his slaves. All nine of them. But this was no ordinary transaction. And Joseph Abrams was no ordinary man. Only seven years earlier he himself had been enslaved.

This week in 1918... A century before the COVID-19 pandemic that we’re all intimately familiar with, a deadly influenza ravaged the nation and the world. Near the end of World War I, it began in Virginia on army bases, and soon spread throughout the state. As illnesses grew and grew, it hit Charlottesville and Albemarle County hard in early October.

This week in 1760... Children excitedly entered the small white building in Williamsburg. It was the first day of school. But this wasn’t any regular school. This was the Bray school for free and enslaved Black children. The first of its kind in Virginia.

Today in 1914... At 6am the bells rang in Charlottesville’s Presbyterian Church. They rang every hour on the hour until 6pm. A reminder to voters that it was Election Day. And not just any old regular election day. Today voters decided in a special referendum if Virginia would become a dry state. Prohibition.

Rude. Cantankerous. Arrogant. These were just a few of the many adjectives that professors and students used to describe modern languages professor George Blaettermann. But his arrival at the University of Virginia had started with such high hopes.

Trouble began when the Doeg Indians raided a Virginia plantation. The colonists retaliated. But they attacked the wrong tribe -- which meant that that tribe retaliated. Before long, large scale raids and attacks were coming from all sides.

Virginia Governor William Berkeley tried to calm everyone down by launching an investigation. But the governor’s cousin Nathaniel Bacon wouldn’t listen. He insisted on fighting the Indians, which Berkeley refused. Bacon got together a group of disgruntled colonists, and a civil war broke out between Berkeley’s loyalists and Bacon’s rebels.

Political pamphleteer James Callender knew how to ruffle feathers. Thomas Jefferson began supporting him and his anti-federalist writings. But Callender went too far and got thrown in jail.

When he got out, he demanded that Jefferson help him out... or else he'd expose Jefferson's secrets.

This week in 1863... During the Civil War, the Confederate government forced free and enslaved Blacks to labor for the Confederate army. They were required to report to the county courthouse where a doctor examined them and determined what work they were fit to do. That’s how James T.S. Taylor ended up in Washington, DC. He was a free Black man from Albemarle County. But he refused to work for the Confederates. So he ran away to Union lines in northern Virginia.

This week in 1969... Hurricane Camille was a category 5 storm when it slammed into the Gulf Coast. Days later, it stalled over Nelson County. Rain fell in buckets for hours, and peaceful mountain creeks quickly became torrents of floods, mud, and rock. Half a century later, it remains the worst natural disaster in Virginia history.

This week in 1900... If you live in Charlottesville, you've probably heard his name... Venable Elementary School and the Venable neighborhood. The man was Charles Scott Venable. And when he died, he was so revered among white Virginians that his obituary was published on the front page of both the Charlottesville Daily Progress and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. That's because he played a key role in constructing the Lost Cause Myth in the years after the Civil War.

This week in 1923… The Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics opened in 1912, and the man hired to lead this new department was Walter Plecker. Following the passage of Virginia's Racial Integrity Act, Plecker threw himself into enforcing a racialized society, declaring that his office has the greatest power in the state to combat race-mixing.

In 1963, Prince Edward County was the only place in the country without public education. Instead of desegregating their schools, they closed them. For years. Most white students went to private schools, but almost 2,000 black students had no formal education at all.

Then, the students protested on the streets of Farmville.

This week in 1656... Slavery started in the Virginia Colony in 1619. Over the next decades, the question of WHO exactly was considered a slave was in flux. Was slavery determined by social status? Religion? Or by race?

Enter Elizabeth Key, the first enslaved woman in the colonies to sue for her freedom.

The morning train chugged down Afton Mountain. On board was a prisoner named John Henry James. He would not make it to his trial in Charlottesville.

Back in 1929, the town of Covington, Virginia warmly welcomed their new rayon plant. The factory became an essential part of Covington’s economy and employed more than a thousand people. But during the next decade, workers tired of the increased workload and the low pay of just $25 a week.

Workers formed a union and tried to settle the disagreements. But when negotiations fell apart, the union voted to strike.

James Madison slowly sat up in bed. He felt very weak that morning. The sun had just risen, and soon the enslaved maid Sukey would bring him his breakfast from the basement kitchen.

But it irritated him that he couldn’t eat it at the dining table. The eighty-five year old “Father of the Constitution” had been confined to his bed for six months. Rheumatism and liver dysfunction crippled him.

Madison still had animated conversations with his family and visitors. But he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. And he was the last of the Founding Fathers.

War between England and France was in full swing. The United States tried to stay neutral, but the British made that task difficult.

The British ship HMS Leopard intercepted the USS Chesapeake off the coast of Norfolk. The British commander requested to search the Chesapeake for British deserters, which the American captain refused. A few minutes later, the HMS Leopard opened fire.

Fields Cook led the delegation of African American men up the White House stairs. He and four other men had come to Washington to deliver a list of grievances to President Andrew Johnson. The Civil War was over. The enslaved freed. But freedmen were at the mercy of their former enslavers, and no Virginia laws addressed the newly freed African Americans.

George Wythe came down the stairs of his Richmond home to have some breakfast. Suddenly Wythe’s stomach cramped. His fingers and toes tingled. His heart palpitated. Wythe knew this wasn’t a regular illness. He had been poisoned!

This week in 1958... It was a classic love story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They get married. But in this story, the girl was Mildred Jeter, a Black woman. And her new husband was a white man named Richard Loving. This was in highly segregated Caroline County and interracial marriage was illegal in Virginia.

This week in 1878... Little Luther Robinson knew he had a bright future before him. Smiles grew on people’s faces as they threw pennies his way. Pennies for dancing in front of a Richmond theatre. Or the beer garden. Or most anywhere he performed. After changing his name to Bill, he moved to Washington, DC, then to New York City. But that was just the beginning...

This week in 1861... Civil War loomed in in America. South Carolina troops had fired on Charleston’s Fort Sumter. President Abraham Lincoln sent reinforcements to Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia and put Major General Benjamin Butler in charge. When three enslaved Virginia men escaped and showed up at the fort to take refuge, Gen. Butler wasn't sure what to do at first. He ended up making "Freedom's Fortress."

This week in 1607... A fleet of three ships carrying about 100 intrepid men sailed up the James River. The settlers were part of the Virginia Company chartered by King James I. Their mission: establish the first permanent English settlement in North America. And find some gold. And a water route to the Pacific.

Fitzhugh Lee boarded the last boat from Havana to Florida. The US was about to declare war on Spain. Americans speculated that Lee, a former Confederate cavalry officer and later governor of Virginia, would be put in command of the forces to liberate Cuba. Which didn’t exactly happen. Though he did command an occupying force after the Spanish-American war.

This week in 1870… Hundreds of men crowded into the Supreme Court of Appeals, which was about to announce the verdict of the Richmond Mayoralty Case. The sagging floor of the second floor balcony was far from people’s minds that day. Suddenly a loud crack sounded under their feet.

This week in 1861.. Robert E. Lee paced the room. Events proceeded quickly. And he knew his next decision would change everything for him, his family, and history.

A week ago, Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina. President Lincoln issued a proclamation and called for a 75,000-man militia to quell the insurrection. Lincoln even asked Virginia to send men and asked Robert E. Lee to take command of the Union Army.

And this is how Lee came to this moment of pensive pacing at Arlington House.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831 sparked a wave of anti-slavery advocacy in Virginia. At UVA, the Jefferson Society elected Merritt Robinson to deliver a speech at the Founder’s Day celebration in the Rotunda in 1832. Robinson used his speech to argue for the emancipation of slaves in Virginia. He made the case that slavery was a moral wrong by quoting Washington, Jefferson, and other founding fathers. The faculty was outraged.

This week in 1858… John Augustine Washington III paced the halls of Mount Vernon. What was he going to do with this place? The house was falling apart around him. And historical tourism income was not enough to keep up the house.

The next evening, a steam ship chugged up the Potomac. Passenger Louisa Cunningham gazed at Mount Vernon as it slipped by. She was horrified by what she saw and resolved to do something about it.

On a spring morning in 1819, seventeen people loaded two wagons with their luggage, tools, and provisions. They left their Rockfish plantation in Nelson County and travelled over Jarman’s Gap and into the Shenandoah Valley.

Their destination? Illinois. 800 miles away.

But first they had to stop in Pennsylvania to meet up with their slaveholder Edward Coles. Yes, the traveling band of men, women, and children were slaves. And Coles planned to free them.

Picture one of your elderly neighbors or family members. Someone in their 80s. When they were a young adult, they had to pay a poll tax to vote in Virginia. Many southern states established these poll taxes at the turn of the 20th century in order to disenfranchise Black and poor white voters. The Commonwealth of Virginia even wrote the poll tax into its new 1902 constitution.

Joseph Fossett worked at his blacksmith anvil late into the evening with a lot on his mind. Earlier that day, his master Thomas Jefferson had told him that he would be freed one year after Jefferson’s death. But only him and four other enslaved men. Not Joseph’s wife Edith or their children.

While traveling from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon, George Washington sat down to write a letter. He was angry. His enslaved chef Hercules had run away from Mount Vernon, and George wanted him back. In his letter, he asked his friend to search for Hercules. But Hercules had freed himself, and he wouldn't be caught.

The Union army led by Custer -- yes, that Custer of Little Big Horn infamy – arrived in Charlottesville on March 3rd. Town and University officials met him at the bottom of Carr’s Hill with a flag of truce. The Union forces occupied Charlottesville for three days and foraged the countryside for food. And African-Americans flocked to the Union camp.

Over a thousand African-Americans followed Union troops as they left the town and headed toward Scottsville. Today, March 3rd is remembered in Charlottesville as Liberation and Emancipation Day.

Four decades before Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech… Three decades before Brown versus Board of Education... Gordon Blaine Hancock was a leading spokesman for African American equality and self-determination in the generation before the civil rights movement.

This week in 1851… Fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins was captured in Massachusetts... until a crowd of black activists broke into a Boston courtroom and freed him again.

The U.S. Census of 1860 reported that almost half a million Virginians lived in slavery. Five years later they were all free.

During the Civil War years, many enslaved people freed themselves. Legally speaking, a pro-Union, shadow state government -- the Restored Government of Virginia -- officially abolished slavery in Virginia. But it took the U.S. Army enforcing these measures after the end of the Civil War for most enslaved people to gain their freedom.

For the most part, Virginia's political leaders and business elites opposed lynching. Not out of respect for the rights of African Americans. More because the elites were trying to attract manufacturing and industry. That called for law and order, and lynchings were bad publicity. Two state senators introduced the nation's first anti-lynching law in February 1928.

People don’t much like to talk about the dark history of eugenics these days. But less than 100 years ago, Virginia lawmakers passed the “Eugenical Sterilization Act” in a drive to protect what the state called “the purity of the American race.”

After being raped by her foster nephew and committed to a mental institution, Carrie Buck became the test case for this new sterilization law.

“Crazy.” “I fall to pieces.” “Walking after midnight.” All classic Patsy Cline songs that may have been unknown today if not for a televised talent show competition.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Richmond native James Branch Cabell was a little known author, even though he had already published eleven books. So nobody really expected his twelfth book -- Jurgen – to cause much of a splash. At least until it caught the eye of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.

Many Virginians know that the city of Richmond burned at the end of the Civil War. But that wasn’t its first time being destroyed by fire. That blaze happened during the Revolutionary War, and by an American traitor to boot.

Born in France and an engineer in Napoleon's army, Claudius Crozet eventually found his way to Virginia, where he became the chief engineer of the Blue Ridge Railroad Company. The company tasked Crozet with connecting Charlottesville to Staunton by railroad. But a rather large obstacle stood in his way – the Blue Ridge Mountains.

December 23, 1783 was an emotional day for George Washington. Crowds cheered for George Washington as he rode to Annapolis, Maryland. Despite their enthusiasm, Washington had one goal in mind – he was resigning as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. Just three months earlier, the British had finally recognized American independence.

The second greatest leader since Booker T. Washington. The wealthiest African-American woman in the whole country. A supporter of educational and social work. Newspapers glowingly described all of Maggie Lena Walker’s many accomplishments after her death in December 1934. But the story of her rise to a position of public esteem reads like fiction.

Revolution was brewing in Virginia. Royal governor Lord Dunmore took a number of actions that sparked civil unrest, and local militias began to muster. It all led to a battle at a Norfolk bridge.

Guilty of conspiracy. Guilty of inciting an insurrection. And guilty of treason. So were the charges against John Brown after his failed raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. The sentence – death by hanging.

Nat Turner’s 1831 rebellion horrified white Virginians and scared all of the slaveholding south. Anti-slavery debates erupted in the Virginia Legislature -- and afforded women their first chance to have their voices heard in state politics.