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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. It borders Kentucky to the west, Tennessee to the south-west, North Carolina to the south, West Virginia to the north-west, and Maryland to the north. The state's capital is Richmond and its most populous city is Virginia Beach. With a population of 8.8 million, it is the 12th-most populous and 15th-most densely populated state. More than one-third of Virginia's population lives in Northern Virginia, which includes the most populous jurisdiction in the state, Fairfax County.

Eastern Virginia is part of the Atlantic Plain, and the Middle Peninsula forms the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Central Virginia lies predominantly in the Piedmont, the foothill region of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which cross the western and southwestern parts of the state. 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. 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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Hurricane Isabel was the costliest and deadliest hurricane in the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. The ninth named storm and fifth hurricane of the season, Isabel formed near the Cape Verde Islands from a tropical wave on September 6 in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. It moved northwestward and steadily strengthened to reach peak winds of 165 mph (265 km/h) on September 11. Isabel gradually weakened and made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with winds of 105 mph (165 km/h) on September 18, quickly weakening over land and became extratropical over western Pennsylvania the next day.

The worst effects of Isabel occurred in Virginia, especially in the Hampton Roads area and along the shores of rivers as far west and north as Richmond and Washington, DC. Electric service was disrupted in areas of Virginia for several days, some more rural areas were without electricity for weeks, and local flooding caused thousands of dollars in damage. Overall, roughly six million people overall were left without electric service in the eastern United States and damage totalled about $5.7 billion (2003 USD, $9.98 billion 2026 USD). 16 deaths in seven U.S. states were directly related to the hurricane, with 35 deaths in six states and one Canadian province indirectly related to the hurricane.

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John Warfield Johnston (1818 – 1889) was an American lawyer and politician from Abingdon, Virginia. He served in the Virginia State Senate, and represented Virginia in the United States Senate when the state was readmitted after the American Civil War. He was United States Senator for thirteen years; in national politics, he was a Democrat.

Johnston had been ineligible to serve in Congress because of the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbade anyone from holding public office who had sworn allegiance to the United States and subsequently sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. However, his restrictions were removed at the suggestion of the Freedmen's Bureau when he aided a sick and dying former slave after the War. He was the first person who had sided with the Confederacy to serve in the United States Senate.

He was caught in the middle during the debate over the Arlington Memorial. Johnston was an outspoken opponent of the Texas-Pacific Bill, a sectional struggle for control of railroads in the South, which figured in the Compromise of 1877. He was also an outspoken Funder during Virginia's heated debate as to how much of its pre-War debt the state ought to have been obliged to pay back. The controversy culminated in the formation of Readjuster Party and the appointment of William Mahone as its leader; this marked the end of Johnston's career in the Senate.

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This month in Virginia history

June 12, 1776: The Virginia Declaration of Rights is ratified by the Fifth Virginia Convention
June 23, 1951: The SS United States (pictured), which has held the Blue Riband since 1952, is christened and launched at the Newport News Shipbuilding yard.
June 25–July 1, 1862: The Seven Days Battles, mere miles from the Confederate capital in Richmond, bring an end to Union efforts to capture it through the Peninsula Campaign; it will not be captured for nearly three more years.

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Credit: Martin Falbisoner

Mount Vernon, the plantation home of George Washington in Fairfax County, Virginia.

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... that the University of Virginia threatened to leave the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 1949 if the Sanity Code, which barred athletic scholarships, was not amended?
... that a Virginia TV station had to take out title loans to pay its staff?
... that bricks laid in Flemish bond were a sign of wealth in colonial Virginia?
... that an 1814 British raid on a fort in Virginia was guided by an escaped slave of the American garrison commander?
... that illustrator Abigail Larson once designed a wine-bottle label for the Edgar Allan Poe Museum?
... that chef Victor Albisu created a bulgogi taco that honors the Koreatown neighborhood of his hometown of Annandale, Virginia?