MLK Day of Service Playground Facelift
What: Lend a helping hand by assisting with a playground facelift at the Method Child Development Center. Volunteers are needed to build a bridge in the sandbox. Additionally, volunteers are needed to power wash the equipment, as well as clean the center.
When:  Jan. 16, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Deliver Hot Meals
What: Volunteers are needed to assist with meal deliveries with Chapel Hill-Carrboro Meals on Wheels. Currently, they serve nine routes and need people to accompany the current volunteers on the routes, while assisting with meal delivery. Lunch will be provided for all volunteers.
When: Jan. 16, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Helping Wake County Seniors
What: Honor the legacy of Dr. King by volunteering an orientation to help Wake County seniors, adults with disabilities and family caregivers. Volunteers will provide weekly or monthly help with transportation.
When: Jan. 16, 2-4 p.m.

Johnston County Signature Project
What: The United Way of the Greater Triangle area is searching for volunteers to lend a helping hand in Johnston County. Volunteers will be asked to conduct a drive for clothing, diapers, etc. Lunch will be provided to all volunteers.
When: Jan. 16, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

Orange County Signature Project
What: At least 500 volunteers are needed to help with this service project. Volunteers will assist with a variety of projects including assembling health kids, birthday kits and school kits. They will also sort shoes and clothing. While you’re sorting and assembling kits, bring your kids and have them create Valentines are active military members and veterans. Lunch will be provided. Volunteers are encouraged to donate new and gently used books and blankets.
When: Jan. 16, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

One Warm Coat
What: Donate any gently worn coat in the collection bins located in Burlington Coat Factory stores to help those in need stay warm all across the country. As you donate a coat, you will receive a 10 percent discount on your entire purchase at Burlington Coat Factory. This year, One Warm Coat has the goal to reach a new milestone – collecting the one millionth coat.
When: Now until Jan. 16
Where: 1213 Buck Jones Rd., Raleigh, NC 27606 or 4020 Capital Blvd. #160, Raleigh, NC 27694

Walter Raleigh was born on 22 January, 1552, near Budleigh Salterton in Devonshire. He was the youngest of 5 boys, 3 of whom were his half-brothers by his mother, Catherine Champermowne’s, previous marriage. His family were wealthy landowners who were also Protestants who lived in fear of their lives during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary. They were friends of Agnes Prest who was burned to death for practising her faith at Exeter, and at one point Walter’s father, also Walter, was forced to go into hiding to avoid execution. So early in his most formative years he developed  a life-long hatred of Roman Catholicism. Despite the family’s perilous position, however, they had connections to the Royal Court; Raleigh’s mother was the niece of Kat Ashley, the Governess of the future Queen Elizabeth.

Little is known of Walter’s early life but in 1568, aged 16, he was registered as an Undergraduate at Oxford University, though he never attended. Likewise, in 1575, he was down to study Law at the Middle Temple but again never attended. It would appear that throughout this time he was on the Continent serving as a soldier of fortune.

By 1579, Walter Raleigh was in Ireland where he helped put down the so-called Desmond Rebellions against increasing English influence in the country. On 12 September, 1580, 600 Italian troops who had been dispatched by the Vatican to support the Rebellion were forced to surrender at the fortress of Dunan Oir. Disarmed they were then summarily put to death. Raleigh was a pivotal figure in the massacre and personally killed a great many, giving full vent to his fury at anyone associated with the Roman Catholic faith.

Raleigh was richly rewarded for his loyal service in Ireland. He was granted lands and estates of more than 40,000 acres and became one of the wealthiest landowners in the newly-established colony of Munster, and he was by all accounts an unremittingly harsh and unsympathetic landlord.

His 17 years as an Irish landowner were not particularly profitable, he had little head for business, and did little to assist his tenant farmers. He was, however, credited with having introduced the potato to Ireland. During his time there he also became friends with another Englishman who had profited from the colonisation, the poet Edmund Spenser, who encouraged him in his own writing and introduced him to many influential people.  His estates in Ireland did though provide him with the money to pursue his seafaring activities.

There were great rewards to be had raiding the trade routes between South America and Spain. Spanish Galleons laden with gold were easy prey, and Raleigh was eager to take his share. Like both Sir Francis Drake and Sir Martin Frobisher, his contemporaries, Raleigh was committing piracy. But it was a piracy that Queen Elizabeth was willing to turn a blind eye to as long as the money kept rolling into her coffers.

Raleigh was desperate to become an accepted member of the Royal Court. He loitered around its corridors, begged for an audience with the Queen, wrote poetry in her honour, and it was said in 1581 that he lay a cloak across a puddle in the Queen’s path. Whether it was true or not (and a cloak does appear on his coat-of-arms) it failed to get him the introduction he so desired. As a commoner he knew that would be almost impossible for him to do so. Something more had to be done.  

In 1584, along with some business associates, he financed and led an expedition to North America where he established the first European Colony at Roanoke in an area he named Virginia in the Virgin Queens honour. Upon his return to England he was lauded as a hero. Now he got his much-cherished audience with the Queen and proceeded to charm her with tales of his adventure and with exotic goods such as tobacco and the potato. The expedition, however, had made no money, and nothing was closer to Elizabeth’s heart than money. Still, she was flattered and in 1585 she knighted him Sir Walter Raleigh on the deck of his flagship the Golden Hind.

Raleigh now had what he had always desired, a place at Court and the confidence of the Queen, but he was not popular.  At over six feet tall he was strong, athletic, a fine swordsman, and behaved with a swagger that made him few friends. He never lost the strong West Country accent that singled him out at Court, was often outspoken, and liked to have the last word in any argument. The enmity he caused would not diminish with time.

In 1587, a second expedition to Roanoke was led by Raleigh’s business partner, John White. The fleet carried supplies and more settlers with the intention of establishing a formal Colony with White as its Governor. Their arrival at Roanoke was delayed by some weeks as they went in pursuit of Spanish treasure. The delay may have been fatal because when they finally disembarked at Roanoke they found the Colonists gone. They had been told that should they have to relocate at any time then they should etch the name of the place they were going to etched in the bark of trees. The only clue to their whereabouts was the word CROATAN. No trace of them was ever found.

Earlier in 1586, Raleigh commissioned the building of a ship to be built in Deptford he named the Ark Raleigh. A year later he cashed in on it when with the threat of the Armada the Queen felt obliged to purchase it from him for the sum of £5000. She renamed it the Ark Royal, one of the most iconic names in the history of the Royal Navy.

Raleigh did not play a significant role in the events of the Spanish Armada. He was given command of the defence of Devon and Cornwall and did not participate in any of the sea battles.

In 1591, Raleigh secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Elizabeth was always intensely jealous of her suitors and was furious when she found out. She had Bess Throckmorton dismissed from her service and Raleigh imprisoned in the Tower of London. Bess would get her job back a year later but Sir Walter would have to wait longer to receive again the Queen’s favour. Even so, Bess and Sir Walter were to remain devoted to one another and she would run the family estates during her husbands frequent absences from home.

Sir Walter Raleigh was elected to the House of Commons on a number of occasions but the business of politics bored him. In 1594, he came into the possession of an account of a great Golden City that existed in what is now Venezuela. He set out to find it, he failed, but the attempt and the story of his adventures only served to further to enhance his reputation. His star continued to rise. In 1596, he participated in a successful attack upon the Spanish port of Cadiz, and in 1600, was appointed Governor of Jersey. 

On 24 March, 1603, Queen Elizabeth died. Her death left Sir Walter in a perilous position. He had never been popular at Court and his overbearing manner had made him a great many enemies. Elizabeth had always been his protector, now she was gone the knives were out. On 19 July, 1603, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London for his alleged involvement in a Catholic led conspiracy to replace the recently enthroned James I with his Catholic cousin, Lady Arbella Stuart. The allegations were based on hearsay only and everyone knew that the very idea that the rabidly anti-Catholic Sir Walter Raleigh would be involved in a plot to replace a Protestant King with a Catholic Queen were absurd. Nevertheless, the trial went ahead. Despite defending himself well, and at times even mocking his accusers, he was needless to say found guilty and sentenced to death. King James, however, commuted the sentence to one of imprisonment.    

Raleigh was to remain in the Tower, though he lived in great comfort, for the next 13 years. He spent his time composing verse and writing of his adventures. His wife was a frequent visitor and she would often stay overnight. Indeed, Raleigh’s son Carew was conceived whilst he was in prison. 

In 1616, he was released from the Tower on the promise that he could find El Dorado, the City of Gold. But there was no City of Gold, only the ever enticing prospect of being able to steal it from the Spanish. He attacked and ransacked the Spanish outpost at San Tome on the Orinoco River. But the days when arbitrary attacks upon Spanish possessions were seen as patriotic acts, were lauded, and reaped rich rewards were over. He returned home to London with little to show for his latest adventure and was met by the wrath of the Spanish Ambassador who demanded that James reimpose the death sentence upon Raleigh for this latest act of piracy. James was no friend of Raleigh’s, he remembered all too well his frequent and violent fulminations against his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. He did not take much persuading.

On 29 October, 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh was taken to the Old Palace Yard in the Palace of Westminster to await execution. He was eager to get it over with, ” Let us dispatch Executioner; at this hour my ague comes upon me. I would not have my enemies think I quake from fear.” Upon seeing the axe that was to be used to behead him he touched its blade and remarked, ” This is a sharp medicine indeed.” His last words as his head lay upon the block were, ” Strike man, Strike!”  

Though his popularity had waned since his Elizabethan heyday, Sir Walter Raleigh remained the great English hero and the execution of this evidently aged 66 year old man did not go down well with the public, and his death was viewed by many as an act of vindictiveness on the part of James. Indeed, a leading Judge of the time remarked, ” Never has English justice been so degraded and injured as in the condemnation of the Honourable Sir Walter Raleigh.”   

“I still shed the tears that my mothers, mother cried,” a quote from a poem whose title and author  escape me but, the sentiment rings so true as we look at the events taking place in Wake County NC. Wake County the home of the state capital finds its residents choosing sides over the issue of school segregation or as the argument is being posed “re-segregation.”

The newly elected school board majority, during their campaign pledged to end the forced bussing and return to the “community school” system.  The opposition contends that the Supreme Court has already ruled that separate but equal was not a workable option.  The opposition which now includes local and national individuals and organizations including the NAACP, are taking their cause to court and say they are willing to invoke the Supreme Court to make a new ruling if necessary.  

To both sides this battle has a hauntingly familiar ring to it. The parents of the children affected by this issue realize that they are fighting the same battle their parents and grandparents fought during the civil rights movement.  Once again protesters are being taken out in handcuffs while others sing “We shall overcome.” 

Clearly this situation is similar but, not the same.  The position of the School Board is not based on the notion of some southern tradition or unspoken understanding between the races. They truly believe that children should go the school closest to their home.  Their argument is reasonable, until you take into account the demographics of the area.  It becomes clear that the current magnet school system has proven to be a better solution.  The diversity policy has proven to be beneficial to all members of the social economic group.  The current program has been heralded nationally and used as a model for other school systems.      

Let us hope that as both sides are fighting for what is best for “their” children that they may take pause and find a common ground and do what is best for all “our” children. 

The execution of Mary Stuart had been brutal and messy. It had also outraged the Catholic world, but by removing the only serious legitimate threat to Queen Elizabeth’s crown it had seemed to secure her tenure on the throne of England. 

Mary Stuart had long been a thorn in the side of Elizabeth. There were many on the Continent, and in England itself, who considered Mary to be the real Queen of England. As early in her reign as 1570, Pope Pius V had issued a bull declaring Elizabeth to be the illegitimate daughter of a whore (Anne Boleyn) who had no right to the throne of England, and that it was the duty of every Catholic to try to depose her and cause her harm. The rewards in heaven would be great for any Catholic who killed her; and there were many conspiracies designed to do just that, and the person they had in mind as her replacement was Mary, Queen of Scots. So as long as Mary lived, she had been told by her many councillors, she could never be safe.

With Marys death a sense of relief swept the country. Now with her gone England was surely at last free of the threat of war, civil or otherwise. They could not have been more wrong. A little over a year after Mary’s execution England was to be faced with its gravest threat since the Norman Conquest – the Spanish Armada.

The Enterprise of England, as it was called, had long been urged on King Philip II of Spain. He had once been married to Elizabeth’s half-sister Mary and de-facto King of England, though he did not rule and his powers had been severely restricted. Marriage to the fanatical, often hysterical, and increasingly paranoid Mary was not easy, and Philip did his earnest best to remove himself from her presence, eventually leaving for Spain never to return. When Elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1558 upon Mary’s death, Philip tried to woo her. Elizabeth, a Protestant as devoted to her religion, if not as fanatical, as Mary had been, was not interested. 

England’s relationship with Spain was always a fraught one, and it was one that Elizabeth did little to alleviate by her actions. Ever a cautious woman her foreign policy was both duplicitous and double-handed. Never able to ignore the lure of riches and wealth she turned a blind eye to English privateers who plundered Spanish treasure ships returning from the Caribbean. In August, 1585, she sent an English army to support the Dutch rebels opposing Spanish occupation whilst at the same time undertaking peace negotiations with Spain. The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, carried out in secret marked her as a regicide, cousin killer, and as a woman who could not be trusted and who would go to any lengths to maintain her own position.

The so-called Enterprise of England (its invasion and subsequent subordination to Spanish rule) had long been in the planning. Philip II, a pasty-faced man, slight of stature with bright blue eyes, meticulous in his dress, fussy to a degree, and gracious to the point of effeminacy, had procrastinated time and time again. By 1588, his health was failing and he had come to mistrust his own judgement more than ever. Always a pious man he had become increasingly so in old age, taking Mass up to six times a day. He had become ever more reliant on counsellors who were as cautious and indecisive as he was. Pope Pius V said in his presence, “ Your majesty spends so long considering your undertakings that when the moment to perform them comes the moment has passed and the money has been spent.” Philip, a firm believer in his divine appointment as King, likewise believed that every decision he made was God’s Will. The only problem was that he did not know what God’s Will was. 

The final straw for Philip, however, was Sir Francis Drake’s raid on the Spanish port of Cadiz. On 29 April, 1587, he sailed his ships into the harbour and bombarded the city. Not satisfied with merely humiliating the King of Spain he took his men ashore and plundered what he could. The Singeing of the King of Spain’s Beard continued when the following month he repeated the trick at Corunna. In all he sank 37 ships and returned laden with treasure. Philip, embarrassed that his remit did not even run to protecting his own shoreline, demanded that Drake be punished. When Elizabeth refused the Enterprise of England became inevitable.

For over a year preparations were made for the operation that would cow England and rid it of its heretic Queen. Philip suffered a blow when the Spain’s leading Admiral, and the man designated to subdue and destroy the English fleet Alvaro de Bazan, the Marques de Santa Cruz, died. The man who Philip chose to succeed him was Alonso Perez de Guzman the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the wealthiest landowner in Spain and Captain of Andalucia. Considered by Philip to be the ablest administrator in Spain and an experienced soldier who had defended the centre of Cadiz against Drake, he had never even been to sea. He was reluctant to take the post and pointed out his lack of experience but Philip was adamant. 

England too was looking to its defence, and to one man in particular, Sir Francis Drake, the victor of Cadiz, and the great Elizabethan seafaring hero.

Drake, who had been born near Tavistock, Devon, in 1544, but raised in Kent, began his career at sea as a slave trader but soon found that there was greater glory and more profit to be made in piracy. In 1572, he sailed to the Caribbean where captured the Spanish port and trading post at Nombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Panama where he plundered the Spanish treasure ships as they docked in port. Returning to England his ships laden with gold. As a result he soon became a darling of the Queen (if not the Court and her Council). In 1577, Queen Elizabeth had commissioned him to steal from the Spanish on behalf of the English Crown. This he did with alacrity. Arriving back in London in September, 1580, having been the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe he was a sensation. Crowds flocked to see him and people tore at his clothes. Seven months later the Queen knighted him on the deck of his flagship, the Golden Hind.

Feared and hated by the Spaniards who put a 20,000 ducat price on his head (£4 million in todays money) dead or alive. A coarse, arrogant, roughly hewn man of little background, he soon became well-versed in Court intrigue. He was little liked and even less trusted. But he was popular with the people and it was in him, though not the Admiral in charge, that everyone now placed their faith. 

On 28 May, 1588, the 151 ships of the Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon in occupied Portugal for the English Channel. The Armada was manned by 8,000 sailors and had on board a further 18,000 soldiers, and 180 Catholic priests. In the Spanish Netherlands another 30,000 troops of the finest army in Europe under the command of its ablest General  Alessandro Farnese, the Duke of Parma, awaited transportation to England. This is where the real threat lay. The English fleet, though out-gunned, was just as large as the Armada and made up for its lack of firepower with greater speed and maneuverability. But it was doubtful if the ramshackle English army, hastily gathered, largely untrained and ill-disciplined, could have put up an effective resistance against the superb Spanish army. If the troops were landed England would be Spain’s. The Armada had to be defeated at sea.

His lack of maritime experience made Medina Sidonia cautious. He ordered that the Armada maintain a tight crescent formation at all times. Tightly packed he believed this made the Armada almost impervious to English attack. He was almost proved right.

Poor weather and the tides ensured that the Armada wasn’t seen off the coast of England until July, 1588. Sir Francis Drake, nominally second-in-command of the English fleet to Lord John Howard of Effingham, was the man expected to defeat the Armada. When he was informed by a panicky courtier that the Armada had been sighted off the coast of Devon, Drake, who playing bowls at Plymouth Hoe responded by saying that there was still time to complete the game and defeat the Spaniards. Drake’s game of bowls might have been apocryphal but the Armada was not and the message that it had been sighted was soon sent out via a series of beacons that were lit all the way from the south-coast to London, the so-called, Fires over England. Howard, however, was keen to attack the Armada at the first opportunity. In the ensuing fight two Spanish ships the Rosario and the San Salvador collided. The San Salvador was sunk and the Rosario captured. On board were 50,000 ducats to which Drake gleefully laid claim as a gift for his always appreciative Queen.

The English fleet continued to harass the Armada throughout the night and into the following day with major confrontations occurring at Edystone and off the Isle of Portland but failed to inflict much damage. The Armada’s tightly packed crescent formation made it slow and ponderous but also almost impenetrable to attack. The English could swarm around the Armada but their ships did not have the firepower to do it much harm. They had to break up the formation.

The Duke of Medina, hampered by the weather and the unpredictable tides of the English Channel was unable to rendezvous with the Duke of Parma’s forces and so in the meantime anchored his ships just off the coast at Calais. He was well-aware of what the English would try to do. With the Armada stationary and all in one place, the English, he believed, would try to break up the formation and destroy as many vessels as they could using fireships. He held a special meeting with his captains to warn them of the expected attack and ordered them not to panic and under no circumstances break formation and head out to the open sea. His patrol boats, he confidently predicted, would deal with any danger posed by the fireships.

On the night of 27 July, 1588, Drake organised the dispatch of 8 fireships crammed with pitch, brimstone, and with their guns primed to go off simultaneously. One of his men, John Young, was responsible for guiding them in the right direction and ensuring that they were all set alight. 

The Spanish watched transfixed as the 8 blazing hulks moved ever closer.They were astonished at the number and the size of the ships. The rumour soon began to spread that they were “hellburners”, fireships crammed with gunpowder primed to explode. Hellburners had been used by the English at the recent siege of Antwerp and the massive explosions had taken the lives of 2,000 Spanish sailors. As the fireships began to float towards the shore having destroyed only one Spanish vessel, panic did indeed set in. The Spanish Captains, one after the other, upped anchor and set sail for the open sea. The Duke of Medina Sidonia frantically signalled for the Captain’s to remain anchored where they were but was ignored. With the crescent formation broken up the Spanish were now vulnerable to attack, and the English wasted no time in doing just that.

At the ensuing Battle of Gravelines, 4 Spanish Galleons stood between the English fleet and the destruction of the dispersed and confused Armada. For hours the held the entire English fleet at bay. Three of the Galleons were sunk and 600 Spanish sailors killed, but their defiance and desperate action had provided the time for rest of the Armada to escape. By the time the fighting had subsided at Gravelines the Spanish were 12 ships short, either sunk, badly damaged, or dead in the water, but the Armada was still largely intact. As the Spanish pulled away the worsening weather made any further pursuit almost impossible. Medina Sidonia would later write that, ” the Armada was saved by the weather, by God’s mercy.” He would soon have reason to change his mind.

The English had blocked-off the route through the Channel. The only way back to Spain to re-fit and re-supply was to follow the route along the east coast of England and around the north of Scotland into the Irish Sea. With no water, little food, and with the wounded and dying still on board, disease soon broke out in the cramped conditions. Spanish sailors began to die by their hundreds whilst others committed suicide or were driven insane by thirst and starvation. As they approached the stretch of water that separated the Hebridean Islands from mainland Scotland the already depleted Armada encountered the worst storms in living memory. Battered by the waves and forced onto the rocks by the wind, the Armada was destroyed. Those ships that survived the storm tried to beach their ships or land their men on the coast of Ireland. Expecting a friendly welcome from their fellow Catholics they were invariably picked off and murdered by the Irish.

By the time what remained of the once mighty Armada reached Spain it had been reduced to a skeleton of its former self. Of the 151 ships that had set sail from Lisbon some three months earlier 15 had been lost to enemy action, 51 wrecked off the coast of northern Britain, 10 abandoned, and 20,000 sailors had lost their lives. The English, by comparison, had lost no ships and fewer than 100 men had been killed, though 6,000 were to die of disease.

It was a great triumph, though it was as much due to a Protestant wind as it was to the valour of its men or the genius of Howard, Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher and others. Still the danger was not yet considered over. Parma continued to wait with his army for transportation and the Spanish had certainly not given up any thought of trying again. The real and present danger of Spanish invasion remained and was to prompt the delivery of one of the greatest orations in English history.

On 8 August, 1588, Queen Elizabeth inspected her army encamped just outside Tilbury Docks. Riding a dappled grey horse and wearing a silver breastplate over a white velvet dress she spoke with passion and not a little emotion:

” My loving people. We have been persuaded by some, careful of our safety, to take heed of how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you that I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself, that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my Kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.

I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King, and a King of England to, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour should grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.

I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you.”

They were not of course. Elizabeth, one of the most rapacious and thrifty monarchs in English history, had only reluctantly agreed to pay for the ships required to defend her realm from the Armada. Any money, crowns and jewels that found their way into her greedy little hands as a result of the campaign she was determined to keep for herself. Even the sailors who had fought against the Armada received only their normal pay and if they were lucky the return fare to their homes. John Hawkins was so embarrassed by the Queen’s tardiness that he rewarded his men out of his own purse.

Even so, England had been saved. Her men had been resolute, God on their side, and the wind in their favour. The fires over England now burned in celebration, but it would not be the last time in this Island’s history that they were lit.

Humphrey Bogart

Lauren Bacall

Barbara Cartland was buried in a pink chiffon gown which was in keeping with her normal style of dress. The British romantic novelist died just before her 98th birthday. She was one of the world’s most successful authors and she sold more than a billion books in thirty-six different languages.

Dame Barbara Cartland

Bela Lugosi was buried dressed in the same black cape that he had worn in so many films in his role as Count Dracula. This Hungarian actor is best known for his starring role in Bram Stoker’s vampire story. He died on August 15th 1956 while on stage. It is said that he died clutching the script to ‘The Final Curtain’.

Bela Lugosi

Walter Raleigh was buried with a pipe and a box of tobacco. The adventurer and explorer brought tobacco to Europe from the New World (America) in the late 1500’s. Raleigh was executed at the Tower of London for treason and his embalmed head was presented to his wife before his body was buried.

Walter Raleigh

Frank Sinatra was buried in a blue suit with a flask of his favorite tipple, ‘Jack Daniels Whiskey’ and a roll of ten dimes placed there by his daughter. He died may 14th 1998 from a heart attack. His final words which were heard by his daughter Nancy, and his wife Barbara, were, ‘I’m Losing’.

Frank Sinatra

The British hoped that the Roanoke Colony, like many other colonies, would be a source of much needed revenue. Queen Elizabeth I also hoped that it would serve as a base to allow Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, and other privateers to harass Spanish shipping. To that end, she granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter that gave him ten years to establish a colony in the New World. After extensive planning, the colony was founded in 1585. Although Sir Walter Raleigh himself did not accompany the settlers to the new colony, he sent a number of competent men including Mr. Thomas Harriot. Harriot was a 25 year old historian and surveyor who visited the colony for about a year soon after it was founded.

Harriot was among the first Europeans to learn the Algonquian language and learned a great deal about the local Indians while visiting the Roanoke colony. One of the things he observed was that the Indians had a curious herbal remedy which they claimed “opened the pores” and prevented diseases. After Harriot and some of the other English colonists ventured to try some of this “uppowoc,” they were quickly sold on it. Whether they really thought it was a good herbal remedy or whether they realized it could be an important cash crop is difficult to say. Whatever their true feelings about uppowoc, Harriot for one wrote glowingly about it in his book “Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.” This was the first book written about the New World in English and its enthusiastic endorsement of uppowoc convinced many Europeans to try it after the residents of Roanoke island began exporting limited quantities of the “herbal remedy.”

Soon, “uppowoc” came to be known by its Spanish word “tobacco” and was being exported in ever increasing amounts. To this day, Virginia and the Carolina remain important tobacco producers. Not everyone was convinced by the supposed health benefits of tobacco, however. As early as 1605, King James I imposed a 4,000% increase in taxes on tobacco hoping to convince people to quit the practice he considered, “…loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, [and] dangerous to the lungs.” Obviously, not everyone shared his remarkably modern view of smoking and the demand for tobacco grew and grew until it was one of the most important exports in the Americas. Indeed, tobacco helped make early colonies viable, so it had a positive influence by encouraging early settlement even though it has very serious negative effects on our general well-being.