We are off to see the capital city of Richmond, Virginia.

The photos are: 1) the Richmond skyline; 2) the Virginia State Capitol (designed by Thomas Jefferson and Charles-Louis Clérisseau); 3) the Jefferson Davis Monument; 4) the Landmark Theater (originally known as the Mosque); 5) the James River; and 6) the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. Like all Virginia municipalities incorporated as cities, it is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and the Greater Richmond area. Surrounded by Henrico and Chesterfield counties, the city is located at the intersections of Interstate 95 and Interstate 64, and surrounded by Interstate 295 and Route 288 in central Virginia. The population was 197,790 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 1,194,008 for the Richmond Metropolitan Area — making it the third largest in Virginia.
The site of Richmond, at the fall line of the James River in the Piedmont region of Virginia, was briefly settled by English settlers from Jamestown in 1609, and in 1610-11, near the site of a significant native settlement. The present city of Richmond was founded in 1737. It became the capital of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1780. During the Revolutionary War period, several notable events occurred in the city, including Patrick Henry's, "Give me liberty or give me death," speech in 1775 at St. John's Church, and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1779; the latter of which was written by Thomas Jefferson in the city. During the American Civil War, Richmond served as the capital of the Confederate States of America, and many important American Civil War landmarks remain in the city today, including the Virginia State Capitol and the White House of the Confederacy, among others.
Richmond's economy is primarily driven by law, finance, and government with several notable legal and banking firms, as well as federal, state, and local governmental agencies, located in the downtown area. Richmond is one of twelve cities in the United States to be home to a Federal Reserve Bank. There are also nine Fortune 500, and thirteen Fortune 1000 companies in the city. Tourism is also important, as many historic sights are in or nearby the city.

The first English settlement within the present limits of the city was made in 1609 by Francis West at the falls, in the district known as Rockett's, and was known as "West Fort". Captain John Smith then bought the fortified Powhatan village on the north bank of the river from chief Parahunt, about 3 miles (4.8 km) from the fort. He named this tract Nonesuch, but the English garrison soon abandoned the entire area after attacks by the Powhatans. In fall, 1610, Lord de la Warre made a second attempt to build a fort at the falls, which managed to last all winter, but was then likewise abandoned.
In 1645, Fort Charles was erected at the falls of the James – the highest navigable point of the James River – as a frontier defense. New settlers moved in, and the community grew into a bustling trading post for furs, hides, and tobacco.
In 1673, William Byrd I was granted lands on the James River that included the area around Falls that would become Richmond and already included small settlements. Byrd was a well-connected Indian trader in the area and established a fort on the site. William Byrd II inherited his father's land in 1704, and in 1737 founded the town of Richmond at the Falls of the James and commissioned Major William Mayo to lay out the original town grid. Byrd named the city Richmond after the town of Richmond in England (a suburb of London) because the view of the James River was strikingly similar to the view of the River Thames from Richmond, England, where he had spent time during his youth. The settlement was laid out in April, 1737, and was incorporated as a town in 1742 by Chad Glasheen.

In 1775, Patrick Henry delivered his famous, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death," speech in St. John's Church in Richmond that was crucial for deciding Virginia's (then the largest of the 13 colonies) participation in the First Continental Congress and setting the course for revolution and independence. Thomas Jefferson, who would soon write the United States Declaration of Independence, George Washington, who would soon command the Continental Army, were in attendance at this critical moment on the path to the American Revolution.
On April 18, 1780, as Virginia’s population moved further west, the state capital was moved from the colonial capital of Williamsburg to Richmond, to provide a more centralized location, as well as to isolate the capital from British attack. In 1781, under the command of Benedict Arnold, Richmond was burned by British troops causing Governor Thomas Jefferson to flee the city. Yet Richmond shortly recovered and, by 1782, Richmond was once again a thriving city.

After the Revolutionary War, Richmond emerged an important industrial center; it also became a crossroads of transportation and commerce, much of this tied to its role as a major hub in the Transatlantic slave trade. George Washington proposed and received the support of the Virginia legislature for the establishment of the James River and Kanawha Canal, the first canal system to be established in the U.S. The canal allowed goods and services coming up the James River to be navigated around the falls at Richmond and connect Richmond and the eastern part of Virginia with the west. As a result, Richmond became home to some of the largest manufacturing facilities in the country, including iron works and flour mills, the largest facilities of their kind in the south. Canal traffic peaked in the 1860s and slowly gave way to railroads, allowing Richmond to become a major railroad crossroads, eventually including the site of the world's first triple railroad crossing. The Canal officially ceased operations in the 1880s, although portions of the canal have been preserved and rebuilt by 1998–1999, spurring tourism and economic development along the old canal route in downtown Richmond.

In February, 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama, the first Confederate capital. In the early morning of April 12, 1861, the Confederate army fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Civil War had begun. On April 17, 1861, Virginia seceded from the United States and joined the Confederate States, and soon thereafter the Confederate government moved its capital to Richmond. The Confederate Congress shared quarters with the Virginia General Assembly in the Virginia State Capitol, and the Confederacy's executive mansion, the "White House of the Confederacy", was two blocks away in the upscale Court End neighborhood.
The Seven Days Battles, in which Union General McClellan threatened Richmond and came very near but ultimately failed to take the city, followed in late June and early July of 1862. Three years later on April 3, 1865, Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army captured Richmond, and the state capital was then relocated to Danville. Six days later, Robert E. Lee's retreating Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, symbolically ending the war. On April 2, 1865, about 25% of the city's buildings were destroyed in a fire set by retreating Confederate soldiers. Union soldiers put out the fires as they entered the city.

Several performing arts venues were constructed during the 1920s. In 1926, The Mosque (now called the Landmark Theater) was constructed by the Shriners as their Acca Temple Shrine, and since then, many of America's greatest entertainers have appeared on its stage beneath its towering minarets and desert murals. Loew's Theater was built in 1927, and was described as, "the ultimate in 1920s movie palace fantasy design." It later suffered a decline in popularity as the movie-going population moved to the suburbs, but was restored during the 1980s and renamed as the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts. In 1928, the Byrd Theater was built by local architect Fred Bishop on Westhampton Avenue (now called Cary Street) in a residential area of the city. To this day, the Byrd remains in operation as one of the last of the great movie palaces of the 1920s and 1930s.
Between 1963 and 1965, there was a, "downtown boom," that led to the construction of more than 700 buildings in the city. In 1968, Virginia Commonwealth University was created by the merger of the Medical College of Virginia with the Richmond Professional Institute. In 1970, Richmond's borders expanded by an additional 27 square miles (69 km²) on the south. After several years of court cases in which Chesterfield County fought annexation, more than 47,000 people who once were Chesterfield County residents found themselves in the city’s perimeters on January 1, 1970.

Today's Jumble (11/05/08):

AVARL = LARVA; BREYD = DERBY; DYBOIL = BODILY; PROOCE = COOPER

CIRCLED LETTERS = ARDBBODOER

Sitting through a lengthy presentation made the directors a ---

"BORED BOARD"

Tonight is Guy Fawkes Night (also known as Bonfire Night, Cracker Night, Fireworks Night). It is an annual celebration on the evening of the 5th of November and celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot of the 5th of November 1605 in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London, England.

And today is National Donut Day. Treat your local police officers to a nice glazed donut. I hear they like them.

Other things on this day in history:

1499 - Publication of the Catholicon in Treguier (Brittany). This Breton-French-Latin dictionary was written in 1464 by Jehan Lagadeuc. It is the first Breton dictionary as well as the first French dictionary.
1530 - St. Felix's Flood destroys the city of Reimerswaal in the Netherlands
1605 - Gunpowder Plot: A plot led by Robert Catesby to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is thwarted when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building.
1688 - Glorious Revolution begins: William of Orange lands at Brixham.
1743 - Coordinated scientific observations of the transit of Mercury were organized by Joseph-Nicolas Delisle.
1757 - Seven Years' War: Frederick the Great defeats the allied armies of France and the Holy Roman Empire in the Battle of Rossbach.
1768 - Treaty of Fort Stanwix - The purpose of the conference was to adjust the boundary line between Indian lands and white settlements set forth in the Proclamation of 1763 in the Thirteen Colonies.
1780 - French-American force under Colonel LaBalme is defeated by Miami Chief Little Turtle.
1831 - Nat Turner, American slave leader, is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia.
1838 - The Federal Republic of Central America begins to disintegrate when Nicaragua separated from the federation.
1854 - The Battle of Inkerman is fought during the Crimean War.
1862 - American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln removes George B. McClellan as commander of the Union Army for the second and final time.
1862 - Indian Wars: In Minnesota, 303 Dakota warriors are found guilty of rape and murder of whites and are sentenced to hang.
1872 - Women's suffrage: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.
1895 - George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
1911 - After declaring war on the Ottoman Empire on September 29, 1911, Italy annexes Tripoli and Cyrenaica.
1913 - The insane king Otto of Bavaria is deposed by his cousin, Prince Regent Ludwig, who assumes the title Ludwig III.
1916 - The Kingdom of Poland is proclaimed by the Act of November 5th of the emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
1916 - The Everett Massacre takes place in Everett, Washington as political differences lead to a shoot-out between IWW organizers and local police.
1917 - October Revolution: In Tallinn, Esthonia, Communist leader Jaan Anwelt leads revolutionaries in overthrowing the Provisional Government (As Estonia and Russia are still using the Julian Calendar, subsequent period references show an October 23 date).
1917 - St. Tikhon of Moscow is elected the Patriarch of Moscow and of the Russian Orthodox Church.
1937 - World War II: Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring "living space" for the German people.
1940 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected to a third term as President of The United States of America.
1942 - The Second Battle of El Alamein is won by the British in El Alamein, Egypt.
1945 - Colombia joins the United Nations.
1967 - The Hither Green rail crash in the United Kingdom kills 49 people. The survivors include Bee Gee Robin Gibb.
1968 - USA Presidential Election: Republican Richard M. Nixon wins the American presidency, in what turned out to be a decades-long realignment election.
1970 - Vietnam War: The United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years (24).
1983 - Byford Dolphin diving bell accident kills five and leaves one severely injured.
1986 - USS Rentz (FFG-46), USS Reeves (DLG-24) and USS Oldendorf (DD-972) visit Qingdao (Tsing Tao) China — the first US Naval visit to China since 1949.
1987 - Govan Mbeki is released from custody after serving 24 years in prison. He had been sentenced to life for terrorism and treason.
1990 - Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at a New York City hotel.
1995 - André Dallaire attempts to assassinate Jean Chrétien; he is thwarted when the Prime Minister's wife locks the door.
1996 - President of Pakistan Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari dismisses the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and dissolves the National Assembly of Pakistan.
2000 - Emperor Haile Selassie I is given an Imperial funeral by the Ethiopian Orthodox church
2006 - Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, and his co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar are sentenced to death in the al-Dujail trial for the role in the massacre of the 148 Shi'as in 1982.
2007 - China's first lunar satellite, Chang'e 1 goes into orbit around the Moon.