Page 198 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

196  W ASHINGT ON , DC & THE C APIT AL REGION

Nighttime view of Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument with the US Capitol in the distance
Jamestown’s eventual success led to the Maryland had evolved into England’s most
establishment of the Catholic colony of profitable New World colonies. In 1664, the
Maryland, named in honor of King James’s English took control of Delaware, founded
wife, Queen Mary. Governed by Lord and settled by the Dutch and the Swedish in
Baltimore, the colony attracted Catholics from the early 1600s. West Virginia, however, did
England as well as Puritan and Quaker settlers not separate from Virginia until the Civil War.
from Virginia. Every year, thousands of English By the 1670s, a simultaneous rise in taxes
immigrants came to the new colonies in and a swift drop in tobacco prices caused
search of opportunities impossible back widespread suffering and a short-lived
home. By the mid-1660s, both Virginia and rebellion. The situation stabilized in the
early 1700s, when some of the tobacco
KEY DATES IN HISTORY farmers began to reap great fortunes. Much
1607 Establishment of the private English colony of of their success was based on the shift from
Jamestown in Virginia servant labor to that of African slaves, whose
1624 Virginia becomes a royal colony numbers grew from a few hundred in
1632 King Charles I establishes Maryland 1650 to over 150,000 in 1750, when blacks
1664 Delaware comes under British rule made up nearly half the total population.
1699 Williamsburg becomes Virginia’s capital
1774 Virginia’s Peyton Randolph leads the first Independence & Civil War
Continental Congress to discuss freedom
1775–81 The Revolutionary War Frustration over British rule eventually
1791 George Washington obtains land for the led to calls for independence. Although
capital city the Revolutionary War ended at Yorktown,
1830 The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) is the Virginia, in 1781, it was only after the Treaty of
nation’s first long-distance railroad Paris that American independence became a
1846 The Smithsonian Institution is established reality. Virginia, by far the largest and wealthiest
1865 Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to of the American colonies, provided many of
the Union at Appomattox
the “Founding Fathers,” including George
1932 During the Great Depression, a “Bonus Army” of
WWI veterans camp around the Capitol to plead for Washington, the military leader and first
government aid president; Thomas Jefferson, author of the
1935 US Supreme Court building is completed Declaration of Inde pendence and third
1963 Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I have a president; and James Madison, author of
Dream” speech before Lincoln Memorial the Con stitution and two-term president.
1989 L. Douglas Wilder is elected governor of Virginia, In 1791, Washington, empowered by a
the first black person to hold such high office
Sept 11, 2001 Terrorist attack on the Pentagon Congressional act, selected the site for the
2009 The nation’s first African-American president, nation’s capital on land incorpo rated from
Barack Obama, is elected Maryland and Virginia, a choice determined by
its location midway between north and south.

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Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
Portrait template “UK” LAYER
(SourceReport v1.2)
Date 5th December 2012
Size 125mm x 217mm