History of Norfolk, Virginia

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rdf:langString The history of Norfolk, Virginia as a modern settlement begins in 1636. The city formally was incorporated in 1736. The city was burned by orders of the outgoing Virginia governor Lord Dunmore in 1776 during the second year of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), although it was soon rebuilt. The 19th century proved to be a time of numerous travails for both the city of Norfolk, and the region as whole. War, epidemics, fires, and economic depression reduced the development of the city. The city grew into the region's economic hub. By the late 19th century, the Norfolk and Western Railway with its line to the west established the community as a major coal ore exporting port and built a large trans-loading facility at Lambert's Point. It became the terminus for numerous other railroads, linking its ports to inland regions of Virginia and North Carolina, and at the turn of the 20th century, the coal mining regions of Appalachia were well connected to the port on the East Coast. Princess Anne and Norfolk counties would become leaders in truck farming, producing over half of all greens and potatoes consumed on the East Coast. Lynnhaven oysters also became a major export. The region's African Americans achieved full emancipation following the Civil War (1861–1865), after the initial Emancipation Proclamation by 16th President Abraham Lincoln in 1862–1863, supplemented later by the three post-war constitutional amendments during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877), only to be faced with severe discrimination through white legislators' later imposition by the 1890s of Jim Crow Laws. After Virginia passed a new post-war state constitution, African Americans were essentially disfranchised for more than 60 years until their leadership and activism won passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.In 1907, it was host to the Jamestown Exposition commemorating the tercennary (300th anniversary) of the first English settlement at Jamestown on the James River, the only world's fair to ever be held in Virginia. As a result of its publicity and visits by high-ranking officials during the exposition (in which the Great White Fleet, of 26th President Theodore Roosevelt with the rebuilt United States Navy after the Spanish–American War of 1898 was launched from Hampton Roads harbor), it became the later location of the Norfolk Naval Station. Today, the city of Norfolk is a major American naval and world shipping hub, as well as the center of the Hampton Roads region, both on the southside and the peninsula to the north of the extensive harbor between the James and York Rivers, with the railroad terminus and ship construction port of Newport News from the 19th century on the west shore and Hampton on the south and east sides, dating back to its founding in the colonial era as Virginia's original port.