Virginia Geographic Calendar - October

October 1

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October 2

- In 1925, the Church Hill Tunnel collapsed in Richmond, and a train and bodies of several workers are still entombed there today.

October 3

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October 4

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October 5

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October 6

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October 7

- King George III issues Royal Proclamation of 1763, prohibiting new settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains

October 8

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October 9

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October 10

- The Ten Thousand Names Petition was submitted in 1776 to the General Assembly by Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other dissenters who wanted to stop the practice of local sheriffs collecting taxes to pay the salaries of Anglican ministers of the "established" church.

October 11

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October 12

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October 13

- In 1908, the electric chair was used for the first time at the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond.

October 14

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October 15

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October 16

- In 1776, the "Ten Thousand Name" petition to end taxation to support the established Anglican Church was presented to the Virginia General Assembly.

- In 1918, the first test of a long-range gun was fired at what is now Naval Support Facility Dahlgren

October 17

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October 18

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October 19

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October 20

- Virginia General Assembly met in Richmond to elect first two Senators to US Congress and to create first 10 districts for election of members to US House of Representatives

October 21

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October 22

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October 23

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October 24

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October 25

- In 1884, the first train of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad reached the shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay at the new town of Cape Charles

October 26

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October 27

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October 28

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October 29

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October 30

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October 31

- George Washington left Williamsburg in 1753, on a mission from Gov. Dinwiddie to tell the French at Fort Le Boeuf to abandon their plans for building forts in the Ohio River Valley