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Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The state's capital is Richmond and its most populous city is Virginia Beach. Its most populous subdivision is Fairfax County, part of Northern Virginia, where slightly over a third of Virginia's population of 8.8 million live.

Eastern Virginia is part of the Atlantic Plain, and the Middle Peninsula forms the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Central Virginia lies predominantly in the Piedmont, the foothill region of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which cross the western and southwestern parts of the state. The fertile Shenandoah Valley fosters the state's most productive agricultural counties, while the economy in Northern Virginia is driven by technology companies and U.S. federal government agencies. Hampton Roads is also the site of the region's main seaport and Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base. (Full article...)

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The Appalachian National Scenic Trail, generally known as the Appalachian Trail or simply the A.T., is a marked hiking trail in the eastern United States extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. The trail passes through the states of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

The precise length of the trail changes over time as trails are modified or added. The total length is approximately 2,200 miles (3,500 km). The path is maintained by 30 trail clubs and multiple partnerships, and managed by the National Park Service and the nonprofit Appalachian Trail Conservancy. The majority of the trail is in wilderness, although some portions traverse towns, roads and cross rivers.

The Appalachian Trail is famous for its many hikers, some of whom, called thru-hikers, attempt to hike it in its entirety in a single season. Many books, memoirs, web sites and fan organizations are dedicated to this pursuit.

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Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743 O.S.) – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and the third President of the United States. Jefferson served in the Continental Congress representing Virginia, then as a wartime Governor of Virginia. After the war ended, Jefferson served as a diplomat stationed in Paris, and later United States Minister to France. Elected president in the Revolution of 1800, he oversaw the purchase of the vast Louisiana Territory, and sent the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore the new west.

A leader in the Enlightenment, Jefferson was a polymath who spoke five languages fluently and was deeply interested in science, invention, architecture, religion and philosophy, interests that led him to the founding of the University of Virginia. He designed his own mansion on a 5,000 acre plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia, which he named Monticello. Jefferson was a skilled writer and corresponded with many influential people in America and Europe throughout his adult life. Though Jefferson has been criticized by many modern day scholars over the issue of slavery, he remains rated as one of the greatest U.S. presidents.

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This month in Virginia history

January 1, 1776: The Burning of Norfolk
January 16, 1786: The Virginia General Assembly adopts the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, an event celebrated annually as National Religious Freedom Day.
January 19, 1807: Future general Robert E. Lee is born at Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County; annually commemorated on the state holiday Lee–Jackson Day (observance date shifts annually).
January 20, 1775: The Fincastle Resolutions are adopted in the lead up to the American Revolution.
January 21, 1960: As part of Project Mercury, Little Joe 1B is launched from Wallops Flight Facility, crewed by Miss Sam (pictured), a Rhesus monkey.

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Credit: NASA

Turning vanes inside one of the wind tunnels at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia

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... that Adam W. Oberlin, the 1917 Republican nominee to be the mayor of Canton, Ohio, went missing and was found seven months later working as a carpenter in Norfolk, Virginia?
... that the general manager of a West Virginia TV station called changing its network affiliation "the hardest decision I've ever had to make"?
... that William H. Davis was the first teacher of Booker T. Washington and the first African American to be nominated as a candidate for West Virginia governor in 1888?
... that in the span of three days, a Florida man was approved by bankruptcy courts to buy TV stations in Roanoke and Lynchburg, Virginia, and then arrested on charges of laundering millions in drug money?
... that there is a Loch Ness Monster in Williamsburg, Virginia?
... that professor Ruth Ann Davis made the largest-ever single contribution to Potomac State College of West Virginia University to support nursing scholarships in memory of her mother?