On April 10th, 1606, King James I granted the Virginia Company of London a charter. Just over a year later, on May 14, 1607, this privately-funded, joint-stock company established the first, permanent English colony in North America at Jamestown, in...
What do we know about how and why England came to establish its first permanent colony at Jamestown? And what do we know about the English colony that came before it, the Colony of Roanoke? Alan Gallay, Lyndon B. Johnson chair of United States...
What in the first 40 years of his life made Benjamin Franklin the genius he became? Benjamin Franklin serves as a great window on to the early American past because as a man of “variety” he pursued many interests: literature, poetry, science...
When we think of the French and Indian, or Seven Years’ War, we often think of battles: The Monongahela, Ticonderoga, Québec. Yet, wars aren’t just about battles. They’re about people and governments too. In this episode, we explore a very different...
Why did England want to establish colonies in North America and how did Englishmen go about establishing them? Today, we explore the early days of English settlement in North America with Malcolm Gaskill, Professor of History at the University of...