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Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel
The Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel (HRBT) is a -long Hampton Roads crossing for Interstate 64 and U.S. Route 60. It is a four-lane facility comprising bridges, trestles, man-made islands, and tunnels under the main shipping channels for Hampton Roads harbor in the southeastern portion of Virginia in the United States. It connects the historic Phoebus area of the independent city of Hampton near Fort Monroe on the Virginia Peninsula with Willoughby Spit in the city of Norfolk in South Hampton Roads, and is part of the Hampton Roads Beltway. History and design Prior to the opening of the HRBT (and well before even the HRBT's counterpart the Monitor–Merrimac Memorial Bridge–Tunnel), VDOT operated ferries to carry vehicle traffic across the harbor from the Southside to the Peninsula. There were two routes: one from Hampton Boulevard near Naval Station Norfolk to downtown Newport News, and a second, less popular route from Willoughby Spit to Fort Monroe in Hampton. Traffic at th ...
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Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, and the 94th-largest city in the nation. Norfolk holds a strategic position as the historical, urban, financial, and cultural center of the Hampton Roads region, which has more than 1.8 million inhabitants and is the thirty-third largest Metropolitan Statistical area in the United States. Officially known as ''Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA'', the Hampton Roads region is sometimes called "Tidewater" and "Coastal Virginia"/"COVA," although these are broader terms that also include Virginia's Eastern Shore and entire coastal plain. Named for the eponymous natural harbor at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads has ten cities, including Norfolk; seven counties in Virginia; and two counties in No ...
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Monitor–Merrimac Memorial Bridge–Tunnel
The Monitor–Merrimac Memorial Bridge–Tunnel (MMMBT) is the 4.6 mile-long (7.4 km) Hampton Roads crossing for Interstate 664 in the southeastern portion of Virginia in the United States. It is a four-lane bridge–tunnel composed of bridges, trestles, man-made islands, and tunnels under a portion of the Hampton Roads harbor where the mouths of the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth Rivers come together. It connects the independent cities of Newport News on the Virginia Peninsula and Suffolk in South Hampton Roads and is part of the Hampton Roads Beltway, a circumferential interstate highway which links the seven largest cities of Hampton Roads. The MMMBT, completed in 1992 provided a third major vehicle crossing of the Hampton Roads harbor area, supplementing the Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel which carries Interstate 64 between the independent cities of Hampton and Norfolk, and the James River Bridge connecting the independent city of Newport News and Isle of Wight County in ...
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Rip Raps
Rip Raps is a small 15 acre (60,000 m²) artificial island at the mouth of the harbor area known as Hampton Roads in the independent city of Hampton in southeastern Virginia in the United States. Its name is derived from the Rip Rap Shoals in Hampton Roads, which also gave their name to a 19th-century criminal gang. In 2020 the island was converted into a bird sanctuary, and routine public access was terminated. History Hampton Roads harbor defenses Rip Raps was originally built in 1817 as part of the harbor defenses to provide a setting on the south side of the navigation channel for Fort Wool (built originally in 1830 and named Fort Calhoun but renamed during the Civil War and rebuilt in 1902), the companion to Fort Monroe (on the northern side of the channel) in protecting access to Hampton Roads with an anti-submarine net. Fort Wool was decommissioned after World War II. It was ceded to Virginia in 1967, and transferred to Hampton, Virginia. President Andrew Jackson used it as ...
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Park
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside towns and cities. National parks and country parks are green spaces used for recreation in the countryside. State parks and provincial parks are administered by sub-national government states and agencies. Parks may consist of grassy areas, rocks, soil and trees, but may also contain buildings and other artifacts such as monuments, fountains or playground structures. Many parks have fields for playing sports such as baseball and football, and paved areas for games such as basketball. Many parks have trails for walking, biking and other activities. Some parks are built adjacent to bodies of water or watercourses and may comprise a beach or boat dock area. Urban parks often have benches for sitting and may contain picnic tables and barbecue gr ...
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ...
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World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ...
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American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, ...
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Fort Wool
Fort Wool is a decommissioned island fortification located in the mouth of Hampton Roads, adjacent to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT). Now officially known as Rip Raps Island, the fort has an elevation of 7 feet and sits near Old Point Comfort, Old Point Comfort Light, Willoughby Beach and Willoughby Spit, approximately one mile south of Fort Monroe. Originally named Castle Calhoun or Fort Calhoun after Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, the fort was renamed after Maj. Gen. John Ellis Wool on 18 March 1862 during the American Civil War. It is noted on current nautical maps as "Rip Raps", and was sometimes referred to by that name during the Civil War. Fort Wool was one of more than forty forts started after the War of 1812, when British forces sailed the Chesapeake Bay to burn the Capital. This program was later known as the third system of U.S. fortifications. Designed by Brigadier General of Engineers Simon Bernard, an expatriate Frenchman who had served as a gener ...
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Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / Eastern Shore of Virginia and the state of Delaware) with its mouth of the Bay at the south end located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles (headland), Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Bay's drainage basin, which covers parts of six states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia) and all of District of Columbia. The Bay is approximately long from its northern headwaters in the Susquehanna River to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocea ...
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Interstate 64 (Virginia)
Interstate 64 (I-64) in the US state of Virginia runs east–west through the middle of the state from West Virginia to the Hampton Roads region, for a total of . It is notable for crossing the mouth of the harbor of Hampton Roads on the Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel (HRBT), the first bridge–tunnel to incorporate artificial islands, concurrent with U.S. Route 60 (US 60). Also noteworthy is a section through Rockfish Gap, a wind gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which was equipped with an innovative system of airport-style runway lighting embedded into the pavement to aid motorists during periods of poor visibility due to fog or other conditions. Route description Alleghany County to Charlottesville I-64 enters Virginia as a four-lane divided highway, continuing its concurrency with US 60 through Covington into Lexington where the two routes split. From Lexington, I-64 then turns northward to Staunton, overlapping I-81 in the Shenandoah Valley. Fro ...
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State Route 168 (Virginia)
State Route 168 is a primary state highway in the South Hampton Roads region of the U.S. state of Virginia. It runs from the border with North Carolina (where it continues as North Carolina Highway 168 towards the Outer Banks) through the independent cities of Chesapeake and Norfolk where it ends in the Ocean View area near the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. SR 168 consists of three sections with different characteristics. From North Carolina to the junction with Interstate 64 and Interstate 464, SR 168 is mostly built to freeway standards as a major road into North Carolina; part of it — the Chesapeake Expressway — is a toll road. From I-64 north into downtown Norfolk, SR 168 is a local road; I-464 carries most through traffic. The rest of SR 168, from downtown Norfolk north to Ocean View, is Tidewater Drive, an arterial road with some interchanges, built to carry traffic to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel before Interstate 64 opened. SR 168 was originally constructed in ...
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Bridge–tunnel
A bridge–tunnel is a persistent, unbroken road or rail connection across water that uses a combination of bridges and tunnels, and sometimes causeways, and does not involve intermittent connections such as drawbridges or ferries. Bridge–tunnels are a form of fixed link or fixed crossing which replaces ferry service. Fixed links are often, but not necessarily, intercontinental links between continents or transoceanic links to offshore islands. Tunnels and bridge–tunnels For water crossings, a tunnel is generally more costly to construct than a bridge. However, navigational considerations at some locations may limit the use of high bridges or drawbridge spans when crossing shipping channels, necessitating the use of a tunnel. Examples of such tunnels include the Downtown Tunnel and Midtown Tunnel under the Elizabeth River between Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia in the United States, the George Massey Tunnel in Greater Vancouver, Canada Canada is a country in No ...
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