The first comprehensive history of Norfolk to appear since 1930, Norfolk: The First Four Centuries tells the story of America's largest maritime port from the first contact between a Spanish sailor and a Chiskiack man in 1561 to the city's late twentieth-century concerns, including pollution of the Chesapeake Bay, urban development, traffic in illegal guns, and racial tensions. Norfolk's splendid harbor made it an early refuge for mariners against the threat of Atlantic pirates and storms, and later gave it natural advantages as a seaport. Incorporated as a town in 1680, Norfolk has survived epidemics, hurricanes, total destruction in the Revolutionary War, and occupation in the Civil War to become Virginia's largest city, a bulk exporter and coaling station and the world's foremost naval base. Thomas C. Parramore and his research assistants include the lives and contributions of hundreds of the city's little-known citizens, including African Americans and other minorities, as well as its celebrated sons and daughters. Norfolk: The First Four Centuries details the events, some tragic, some amusing, that have given the city its rich, diverse, enduring character.