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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
1620

The Mayflower clears Plymouth harbor, alone, bound for Virginia

The Speedwell has already been left behind as unseaworthy; 102 passengers now cross alone.
1775

Ethan Allen surrenders outside Montreal after his flanks bolt and his backup never comes

Ninety minutes of fire, and the man who took Fort Ticonderoga without a shot is a British prisoner.
1492

Land ho: Columbus reaches a Caribbean island he takes for the Indies

A lookout aboard the Pinta spots the shore first, ten weeks after three ships left Spain.
1775

Congress votes to buy two ships and go after British supply boats

A three-man Naval Committee is born in Philadelphia, over objections that the whole scheme is an infant taking a mad bull by the horns.
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