Woodside High School (Virginia)

The Battle of Yorktown or siege of Yorktown was fought from April 5 to May 4, 1862, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. Marching from Fort Monroe, Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac encountered Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder's small Confederate force at Yorktown behind the Warwick Line. McClellan suspended his march up the Peninsula toward Richmond and settled in for siege operations. On April 5, the IV Corps of Brig. Gen. Erasmus D. Keyes made initial contact with Confederate defensive works at Lee's Mill, an area McClellan expected to move through without resistance. Magruder's ostentatious movement of troops back and forth convinced the Union that his works were strongly held. As the two armies fought an artillery duel, reconnaissance indicated to Keyes the strength and breadth of the Confederate fortifications, and he advised McClellan against assaulting them. McClellan ordered the construction of siege fortifications and brought his heavy siege guns to the front. In the meantime, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston brought reinforcements for Magruder. On April 16, Union forces probed a point in the Confederate line at Dam No. 1. The Union failed to exploit the initial success of this attack, however. This lost opportunity held up McClellan for two additional weeks while he tried to convince the U.S. Navy to bypass the Confederates' big guns at Yorktown and Gloucester Point, ascend the York River to West Point and outflank the Warwick Line. McClellan planned a massive bombardment for dawn on May 5, but the Confederate army slipped away during the night of May 3 toward Williamsburg. The battle took place near the site of the 1781 siege of Yorktown.

On January 6, 2023, American school teacher Abby Zwerner was seriously injured when a six-year-old male student shot her while she was teaching in her classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia. The boy had brought from home, in his backpack, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol belonging to his mother. Zwerner's shooting provoked conversations about the culpability of young shooters and their parents, and comparisons with the 2000 killing of Kayla Rolland, also committed by a six-year-old student.

Richneck Plantation was located on the Virginia Peninsula on the northern shore of the James River between Hampton Roads and Jamestown in the English colony of Virginia. The Richneck manor house's foundation was discovered during construction of the George J. McIntosh elementary school (named for a modern Newport News educator), and became an archeological dig, then listed on the National Register of Historic Places.The earliest proprietor of Richneck Plantation was Robert Rich, second Earl of Warwick and a prominent member of the Virginia Company. The Warwick River, Warwick River Shire, and Warwick County were all named for him. Warwick Towne was the first county seat, succeeded by this plantation under Miles Cary, discussed below. In 1628, Zachariah Cripps patented this area, and later sold the land to Miles Cary Sr., who lived nearby at Windmill Point. After he died repelling Dutch invaders in 1667, it was inherited by his son Miles Cary (1655-1709), who after he came of age, constructed a manor house and lived there with his wife, Mary Milner, and family. Richneck became one of the most important plantations of the Cary family, one of the First Families of Virginia, with many members who served in legislative and government offices. It was successively inherited by Col. Wilson Cary (1703-1772) and his son Col. Wilson Miles Cary (1734-1817), both of whom successively served as legislators, as well as naval officers for the Lower James River before the American Revolutionary War. Wilson Miles Cary signed the Association of 1774 and sided with the patriots during the American Revolutionary War. They also farmed using enslaved labor. The Richneck plantation house burned in 1865, at the end of the American Civil War, and visited by a descendant, Wilson Miles Cary in 1868.Richneck Road remains in the Denbigh area of the modern independent city of Newport News, Virginia.

Newport News Park, in Newport News, Virginia, is the largest park in the system of municipal parks maintained by the Newport News Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. At 8,065 acres (32.63 km²), it is one of largest city-run parks in the United States, and offers a wide range of activities for residents and tourists alike. The park is in the northern part of the city of Newport News (13560 Jefferson Avenue, Newport News VA 23603), with its main entrance on Jefferson Avenue to the northwest of its intersection with Ft. Eustis Boulevard. Farther up Jefferson Avenue is the entrance to its campsite. To the northeast of the intersection, on Ft. Eustis Boulevard, is the secondary entrance at Old Stable Road, and farther up Ft. Eustis Boulevard is the main entrance for the Newport News Golf Club at Deer Run, which is on park grounds. The park shares a long border with the Colonial National Historical Park, and several of its biking and hiking trails cross into it.

Lee's Mill Earthworks is a historic archaeological site located at Newport News, Virginia. The earthworks formed part of the fortifications along the James River, which included fortifications at Fort Crafford, as well as, Dam No.1, and Wynne's Mill in Newport News Park. On April 5, 1862, advance units of Union Brigadier General Erasmus D. Keyes' IV Corps, under the command of Union Brigadier General William Farrar Smith, encountered Confederate units commanded by Brigadier General Lafayette McLaws at Lee's Mill. Heavy rains and massive earthen fortifications defending the river crossing stopped the Union troops from proceeding to Richmond. Confederate Major General John B. Magruder's extensive defensives beginning at Lee's Mill and extending to Yorktown along the Warwick River caused the Union Army of the Potomac Commander Major General George B. McClellan to initiate a month-long siege of the Warwick-Yorktown Line which lasted until May 3, 1862 and contributed to the eventual failure of McClellan's campaign.Lee's Mill has recently been preserved and is being transformed into a passive park with trails interpreting the fortifications. The earthen fortifications remain visible in many locations, including Newport News Park and the Lee's Mill subdivision. An active effort will be made to delineate, preserve and interpret these earthworks for the future.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Grafton Ponds Natural Area Preserve is a 375-acre (1.52 km2) Natural Area Preserve located in York County, Virginia. It preserves Virginia's best remaining example of a coastal plain pond complex, and supports several locally-rare species including pond spice (Litsea aestivalis), Mabee's salamander (Ambystoma mabeei), barking treefrog (Hyla gratiosa), and the globally imperiled Harper's fimbristylis (Fimbristylis perpusilla).The preserve is owned and maintained by the city of Newport News, and is open for public access.

Camp Patrick Henry is a decommissioned United States Army base which was located in Warwick County, Virginia. After World War II, the site was redeveloped as a commercial airport, and became part of City of Newport News in 1958 when the former City of Warwick and Newport News were politically consolidated as a single independent city. The airport is known in modern times as Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport.

York High School is a York County School Division high school located in Yorktown in York County, Virginia, on U.S. Route 17 about 3 miles south of Yorktown. The school was opened in 1954 and currently enrolls over one thousand students. Athletic teams compete in the Virginia High School League's AA Bay Rivers District in Region I. The school is the home of the school division's television station and offers television production courses in the curriculum. The school is also the home of the York River Academy (a charter school that focuses on collaborative education teaching computer repair, cabling, and web design) and is the YCSD site for the International Baccalaureate Programme. York High School was once home to the most powerful high school radio station in the United States, WYCS 91.5.

Warwick is an extinct independent city which was located in the State of Virginia in the United States from 1952 until 1958. Formed by a political conversion of the former Warwick County, Virginia (1634–1952), it is now part of the independent city of Newport News, Virginia.

Colonial National Historical Park is a large national historical park located in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia operated by the National Park Service. It protects and interprets several sites relating to the Colony of Virginia and the history of the United States more broadly. These range from the site of the first English settlement at Jamestown, to the battlefields of Yorktown where the British Army was defeated in the American Revolutionary War. Over 3 million people visit the park each year.

Warwick County was a county in Southeast Virginia that was created from Warwick River Shire, one of eight created in the Virginia Colony in 1634. It became the City of Newport News on July 16, 1952. Located on the Virginia Peninsula on the northern bank of the James River between Hampton Roads and Jamestown, the area consisted primarily of farms and small unincorporated villages until the arrival of the Peninsula Extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1881 and development led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington. With the railroad came the coal piers, several local stations in Warwick County for passenger service and shipping produce and seafood to markets, and a branch link to the resorts and military facilities in neighboring Elizabeth City County at Old Point Comfort. The community at the southeastern edge on the harbor of Hampton Roads became Newport News in 1896, hosting the world's largest shipyard. At the outset of World War I, the U.S. Army facility which became Fort Eustis was established in the county. After the war, Camp Patrick Henry, a former military facility, became the site of Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport. After sparring over annexations and exploring various plans to refine and/or combine local governments, by mutual agreement, after existing for over 325 years, the City of Warwick was politically consolidated with the younger city of Newport News on July 1, 1958. The better known name of "Newport News" was assumed for the combined entity, forming one of the contemporary cities of Hampton Roads.

Warwick County Courthouses, also known as the Warwick County Courthouse and Clerk's Office, is a historic courthouse and clerk's office located at Newport News, Virginia. The original courthouse was built in 1810, and is a one-story, three-room, T-shaped plan Federal-style brick building. It has a slate-covered gable roof and exterior end chimneys. The building was later enlarged by a side and rear addition. The later courthouse was built in 1884, and is a two-story, Italianate style brick building. It has a rectangular plan and a shallow metal-covered hipped roof with three shallow cross gables. It features a square wood bell cupola that rises above the central projecting bay. Also on the property is a contributing Confederate monument dedicated in 1909. The buildings housed county offices until 1958, when Warwick County, Virginia was annexed by Newport News.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.