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The Virginia Portal  Virginia, officially theCommonwealth of Virginia, is astate in theSoutheastern andMid-Atlantic regions of theUnited States between theAtlantic Coast and theAppalachian Mountains. The state'scapital isRichmond and its most populous city isVirginia Beach. Its most populous subdivision isFairfax County, part ofNorthern Virginia, where slightly over a third of Virginia's population of more than 8.8 million live. Eastern Virginia is part of theAtlantic Plain, and theMiddle Peninsula forms the mouth of theChesapeake Bay. Central Virginia lies predominantly in thePiedmont, the foothill region of theBlue Ridge Mountains, which cross the western and southwestern parts of the state. The fertileShenandoah Valley fosters the state's most productive agricultural counties, while the economy in Northern Virginia is driven bytechnology companies andU.S. federal government agencies.Hampton Roads is also the site of theregion's main seaport andNaval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base. (Full article...) Selected article.jpg) The area now known as Newport News was once a part ofWarwick County, one of the eight originalshires of Virginia. In 1881, 15 years of explosive development began under the leadership ofCollis P. Huntington, whose newPeninsula Extension of theChesapeake and Ohio Railway from Richmond opened up transportation along the Peninsula and provided a new pathway for the railroad to bringWest Virginiabituminous coal to port for coastal shipping and worldwide export. With the new railroad came a terminal andcoal piers where thecolliers were loaded. Within a few years, Huntington and his associates also built a largeshipyard. In 1896, Newport News wasincorporated as a town. In 1958, by mutual consent by referendum, Newport News was consolidated with theformer Warwick County, rejoining the two localities to approximately their pre-1896 geographic size. The more widely known name of Newport News was selected as they formed what was then Virginia's third largest independent city in population. As of 2012, the city population was 183,331 ranking it as Virginia's fifth largest incorporated city by population. With many residents employed at the expansiveHuntington Ingalls Shipbuilding, the jointU.S. Air Force-U.S. Army installation atJoint Base Langley–Eustis, and other military bases and suppliers, the city's economy is very connected to the military, together with continued importance as a shipping hub through the Newport News Marine Terminals. Selected biography In 1920, Anderson was institutionalized in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt inBerlin. In March 1922, claims that Anderson was aRussian grand duchess first received public attention. Most members of Grand Duchess Anastasia's family and those who had known her, including court tutorPierre Gilliard, said Anderson was an impostor but others were convinced she was Anastasia. In 1927, a private investigation identified Anderson asFranziska Schanzkowska, a Polish factory worker with a history of mental illness. After a lawsuit lasting many years, the German courts ruled that Anderson had failed to prove she was Anastasia, but through media coverage, her claim gained notoriety. She emigrated to the United States in 1968, and shortly before the expiry of her visa married Jack Manahan, aVirginia history professor who was later characterized as "probablyCharlottesville's best-loved eccentric". DNA tests on a lock of Anderson's hair and surviving medical samples of her tissue showed that Anderson's DNA did not match that of the Romanov remains or that of living relatives of the Romanovs. Most scientists, historians and journalists who have discussed the case accept that Anderson and Schanzkowska were the same person. This month in Virginia history
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Confederate dead along Sunken Road inFredericksburg, Virginia after theBattle of Chancellorsville, on the exact position where months earlier theBattle of Fredericksburg was fought. Did you know -load new batch
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