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Location of 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
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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MacArthur at Leyte Island, 1944
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (1880 – 1964) was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army who was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign. He was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the U.S. Army, and the only man ever to become a field marshal in the Philippine Army.

Raised in a military family, he graduated top of the class at United States Military Academy at West Point. MacArthur was decorated for his service in Western Front during World War I, served as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, was Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and retired from the army in 1937. MacArthur was recalled to active duty in 1941 as commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East, countering the invasion of the Philippines by the Japanese. MacArthur's forces were soon compelled to withdraw to Bataan, where they held out until May 1942, escaping to Australia where MacArthur became Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area. After more than two years of fighting in the Pacific, he fulfilled a promise to return to the Philippines. He officially accepted Japan's surrender on 2 September 1945, and oversaw the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. As the effective ruler of Japan, he oversaw sweeping economic, political and social changes. He led the United Nations Command in the Korean War until he was removed from command by President Harry S. Truman on 11 April 1951. He and his wife are buried in Norfolk, Virginia.

This month in Virginia history

Statue of John Smith at Historic Jamestowne, site of the James Fort
Statue of John Smith at Historic Jamestowne, site of the James Fort

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Map of Virginia's counties and cities
Map of Virginia's counties and cities

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Credit: Andrew J. Russell for Mathew Brady, 1863

Confederate dead along Sunken Road in Fredericksburg, Virginia after the Battle of Chancellorsville, on the exact position where months earlier the Battle of Fredericksburg was fought.

Fact sheet

  • Capital: Richmond, Virginia
  • Total area: 110,862 sq.mi
  • Highest elevation: 5,729 ft (Mount Rogers)
  • Population (2010 census) 8,001,024
  • Date Virginia joined the United States: June 25, 1788

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