John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a supply-trip to England to find the settlement deserted. White and his men found no trace of the 115 or so colonists he left behind, and there was no sign of violence.

On Kodiak Island, Grigory Shelikhov, a Russian fur trader, founds Three Saints Bay, the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska.

A California librarian assembles forgotten objects in a heartwarming digital archive

Austin, Texas