However the name was arrived at, Virginia originally the name for to the entire east coastal region of America, extending from Maine to South Carolina and including the island of Bermuda. West Virginia came into being when the western part of the state separated from the rest of Virginia in 1863.

Climate

Consultant: Nicholas Harris

History of West Virginia

17th century
The region is mostly unpopulated, serving as hunting grounds for Native American Iroquois (who have, by 1670s, driven other tribes, such as the Moneton, out of the region)

1607
What is now West Virginia becomes part of the British Virginia Colony. Cut off from the east by rugged mountains, the area is visited only by explorers and fur traders

1671
At the direction of the Virginia Colony, a party led by Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam discovers Kanawha Falls

1725
German families establish a settlement in the Eastern Panhandle on the Potomac and name it New Mecklenburg (now Shepherdstown)

1742
Coal is discovered in West Virginia

1749
The British government grants the Ohio Company large tracts of land in the Allegheny Plateau

1751–52
Christopher Gist, a surveyor of the Ohio Company, explores the country along the Ohio River north of the mouth of the Kanawha River

1754–63
French and Indian Wars: British settlers fall into conflict with the French in the Ohio valley; during the war, most settlers flee the area, returning after British forces capture Fort Duquesne in 1758

1763
A British proclamation forbids settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains, for fear of sparking conflict with the Native Americans, who are resentful at encroachment on their hunting grounds. This proclamation is largely ignored by settlers

1774
Lord Dunmore's War: Crown Governor of Virginia, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, leads a force against the Shawnee Indians, under Hokoleskwa (or "Cornstalk"), and is victorious at the Battle of Point Pleasant

1776
Virginia, which still includes the area of West Virginia—commonly known as Trans-Allegheny Virginia—becomes a state of the newly-independent United States

early 19th century
The opening the Mississippi River to navigation and the completion of the National Road at Wheeling leads to growth of population and prosperity in Virginia. Tensions start to emerge between the western and the eastern halves of the state. The east is dominated by the wealthy planters and slave-holders, and who command a majority in the state government

1861
At the outset of the Civil War, the northwestern counties of Virginia overwhelmingly oppose the secession of Virginia from the Union, but are unable to halt it. Delegates representing most of Virginia's western counties meet at the Wheeling Convention and form the "restored government" of Virginia, led by Francis Pierpont. The decision to separate from Virginia is approved by a referendum. After a vote, the proposed name of the new state, “Kanawha”, is rejected in favour of “West Virginia”

late 19th century
Bituminous coal mined in West Virginia fuels much of the Industrial Revolution in the US

1863
New state of West Virginia admitted to the Union

1977
New River Gorge Bridge, a steel arch bridge 924 m (3030 ft) long over the New River near Fayetteville, then the world's longest single-span arch bridge and still one of the highest road bridges in the world (267 m / 876 ft above the river), is completed.

2000
Construction of the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT), the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, in Green Bank, West Virginia, is completed

2014
The Elk River chemical spill: 38,000 litres of MCHM, a chemical foam used to remove impurities from coal, iss released from a Freedom Industries facility into the Elk River, a tributary of the Kanawha River, in Charleston