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15851776 Club

English colonists step ashore at Roanoke Island under Ralph Lane

The wrecked flagship already cost them most of their food before they even reached the beach.

Sir Walter Raleigh had spent eighteen months turning a royal patent into a fleet, and on August 17, 1585, that fleet finally put men ashore. Under governor Ralph Lane, the first group of colonists landed on the north end of Roanoke Island, off present-day North Carolina, to build England's first military outpost in North America. They arrived already short on supplies, after a storm-battered voyage that had run the flagship Tiger aground. Within a year, hunger and worsening relations with the Secotan forced the colony's abandonment…

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More from August 17
1943

376 bombers split into two forces; 60 do not come home

The plan sent Curtis LeMay's group in first to draw the fighters, leaving Robert Williams to fight his way out alone.
1863

Fort Sumter takes another day of shelling; the fort answers with rubble, not guns

Five days into a sustained bombardment, Dahlgren's ships and Gillmore's batteries pound a fort already reduced to broken masonry.
1998

Clinton tells grand jury of "improper" ties to Lewinsky, then tells the country he misled them

Seven months after denying it on camera, the president reverses himself twice in one day.
19431776 Club
A five-week race up the island ends with the Seventh Army first through the gates.
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More from Colonial America
1775

Washington rides into Cambridge; a crowd of farmers and tradesmen is now his army

Commissioned by Congress nine days ago, the new commander-in-chief finds his New England forces short on gunpowder, discipline, and uniforms.
1775

Congress sends King George a loyalty oath and a list of grievances; the delegates call it their olive branch

Hancock and the full Congress sign the petition in Philadelphia, and envoys Richard Penn and Arthur Lee are bound for London with the appeal.
1663

Charles II signs Rhode Island's charter; no colony has ever put religious liberty in writing like this

John Clarke, jailed in Massachusetts a dozen years ago for preaching Baptist, wins the argument: a colony can thrive without a state church.
1775

Congress cuts the cord to London's mail: Franklin named postmaster general

A line of posts is ordered from Falmouth to Savannah, and the emerging nation gets its own way to talk to itself.
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