In time for the Fourth of July, a new poll asks Americans whether they still agree with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Turns out . . . that 89% of American adults agree that “we are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights among them life, liberty, and the [...]

Click to continue →

Over at BackStory, they’re considering the Fourth of July and the Declaration of Independence, prompting a detailed accusation of “BS” from one commenter, who objects, among other things, to the Declaration being referred to as “propaganda.” Meanwhile, at the New York Times, artist Maira Kalman, author of the forthcoming And the Pursuit of Happiness, considers [...]

Click to continue →

I suggested just the other day that . . . you can do like Cushman, and go to the Wilderness yourself. Cut the language screen down and try to feel what it’s like to just be there. Now, when you’re done just being there, you can just be yourself off to Wal-Mart. A split Orange [...]

Click to continue →

A historical marker was dedicated last Friday to Sacagawea at the statue of Lewis and Clark on West Main Street in Charlottesville. The statue’s image of the Shoshone Indian woman has long been controversial; she’s kneeling, which some people have interpreted as being too subservient. According to the Daily Progress: The statue was erected in [...]

Click to continue →

If you will be in the Charlottesville-Albemarle neighborhood of Virginia on Friday afternoon, please take note: Attention Virginians:  On Friday, June 19th at 5:30 PM, BackStory will be staging a rare, live event. The History Guys will be taping a live performance of the show at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, [...]

Click to continue →

Virginia’s fifth district congressman, Tom Perriello, has introduced a bill in Congress aimed at saving the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford. An earlier post linked to news that the memorial was in financial trouble.

Click to continue →

The Associated Press reports: On the eve of the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the foundation that runs the National D-Day Memorial is on the brink of financial ruin. Donations are down in the poor economy. The primary base of support—World War II veterans—is dying off. And the privately funded memorial is struggling to draw visitors [...]

Click to continue →

Herbert Barger’s often ALL-CAPPED protestations notwithstanding, the critical consensus seems to have swung decisively in the direction of Annette Gordon-Reed and her interpretation of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. For her history The Hemingses of Monticello, Gordon-Reed has won the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and now the George Washington Book Prize, given annually [...]

Click to continue →

This morning, the Washington Post has a story that wonders where all of Virginia’s great race horses have gone. In 1973, when Secretariat, a stallion born and raised in Caroline County, Va., won the Triple Crown, the state was a regular contender in the nation’s highest-profile races. Virginia has been famous as a producer of [...]

Click to continue →

An advertisement in the Norfolk Herald on October 2, 1800, calling attention to two runaway slaves—a father and daughter: Twenty Dollars Reward. Ran away, about the 20th instant, a Negro Man called BRISTOL, and his daughter SALLY. Bristol is a short, thick, very black fellow, with very short curled hair; his clothes are sailor’s, being [...]

Click to continue →

The Virginia Folklife Program—which, like Encyclopedia Virginia, is sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities—held its annual Apprentice Showcase this month. It was an amazing show, with gunsmiths and Ethiopian drummers; old-time fiddlers and Brunswick stew makers; a storyteller and a world-champion oyster shucker; and, to finish off the afternoon, Maggie Ingram & The [...]

Click to continue →

Regarding “The Spock,” an alleged church just south of Lynchburg whose religion is based on the Star Trek television series and, in particular, the fictional character Mr. Spock and his fellow Vulcans: The ideology of the church is centered on so-called Vulcan philosophy which includes the belief in pure “logic” and which emphasizes a lifestyle [...]

Click to continue →

In a previous post, I mentioned John Brown. The “Old Puritan,” as he was sometimes called, was the subject of an hour-long discussion at the Virginia Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Conference in Richmond last week. Four scholars gathered together to present an understanding, fit for 2009, of the infamous liberator-or-terrorist (depending, perhaps, on your section) [...]

Click to continue →

The opening of Virginia’s Civil War Sesquicentennial was held a week ago today at the University of Richmond. It featured a daylong conference on life in 1859—that year being deemed, for the purposes of commemoration, the beginning of the Civil War. After all, it was John Brown—hanged in Charles Town, Virginia, on December 2, 1859—who [...]

Click to continue →

Courtesy of the Civil War Preservation Trust, here is video of Robert Duvall speaking at the Wilderness yesterday on the subject of a proposed Wal-Mart there. Short version: He’s against it. Also, he’s related to Robert E. Lee. The Associated Press picked up on the story, telling its readers that Duvall “believes in capitalism coupled [...]

Click to continue →

I realize that this isn’t Virginia history exactly, but the Washington Post reports this morning on a recently discovered cache of unknown letters by, to, and about Benjamin Franklin. The sensational find, announced in the upcoming issue of the William & Mary Quarterly, centers on Franklin’s interactions with Gen. Edward Braddock after he and his [...]

Click to continue →

More than $30 million of federal stimulus money will go to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah National Park will receive $17 million, the largest amount of money awarded to any national park in Virginia. Of that sum, $9.5 million will go toward rehabilitating 16 historic overlooks along Skyline Drive. “These projects [...]

Click to continue →

There’s an interesting piece in this morning’s Washington Post about how schools teach the causes of the Civil War in the era of Obama. Well, Obama is the story’s hook, but aside from some airy cliches about a “national conversation on race,” I’m not sure he has too much to do with anything. Still, talking [...]

Click to continue →

From the Roanoke Times: Elisha Ray Nance died at the Elks National Home in Bedford on Sunday, less than two months before the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Nance, 94, was the last surviving officer of Company A and the last surviving Bedford Boy. He was one of 34 servicemen from the Bedford area who landed [...]

Click to continue →

Encyclopedia Virginia (Beta) is now officially live. We’re adding content every week, and we’ll use this space in part to highlight newly posted entries. You can also check the blog’s sidebar for updated content, or subscribe to the encyclopedia’s RSS feed, which can be particularized to the kind of content you prefer to read. In [...]

Click to continue →