After a grueling four-month Atlantic crossing, roughly 104 English colonists aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery sighted land near the Chesapeake Bay. Days later they would sail up the James River and establish Jamestown, launching England's first lasting colonial foothold in North America.
The three small ships, commissioned by the Virginia Company of London, had departed England in December 1606 carrying gentlemen adventurers, laborers, and craftsmen hoping to find gold and a passage to Asia. The crossing was brutal, cramped quarters, spoiled food, and disease killed several passengers before they ever reached the New World.
When lookouts finally spotted the low, wooded Virginia coastline, colonists reportedly fell to their knees in relief and prayer. They named the point of land Cape Henry, after the eldest son of King James I, before continuing to explore the Chesapeake Bay for a suitable settlement site.
Within two weeks they would choose a defensible spot on the James River and establish Jamestown, a settlement that nearly collapsed repeatedly from starvation, disease, and conflict with the Powhatan Confederacy, but which ultimately became the seed of England's American colonial empire, reshaping the fate of an entire continent.