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- Explore Time Periods
Explore Time Periods
Learn about 16,000 years of Virginia history through collections objects, historical articles, video, and our interactive timeline.

Explore Time Periods
Collections Spotlight

Across Time: Robinson House, Its Land and People
Project curator and author Elizabeth O’Leary shares the multilayered story of this unique architectural structure over centuries, including its individual inhabitants and significant history, science, and art institutions.

Four Centuries of Virginia Women's History
Historian Cynthia A. Kierner explores the impacts of Virginia women as historical actors and how what we’ve learned about their experiences can transform our understanding of Virginia's ever-evolving story.

Native Southerners: The Indigenous People Who Made and Remade the South
Historian Gregory D. Smithers brings the world of Native southerners to life in this sweeping narrative of American Indian history in the Southeast from the time before European colonialism to the Trail of Tears and beyond.
9th G7 Summit is held in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Featured Collections Items
The VMHC has a collection of more than 9 million items. Here are just a few them (please note that not all of them may be on display to the public). Search the Library or Museum Objects Collections databases to learn more.

Tennis Items, Arthur Ashe

Drawing, Natural Bridge

Painting, George Washington

Bowie Knife

Desk circa 1780-1805

U.S. Navy WAVES Uniform

Equal Suffrage League of Richmond Photograph

Program, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1962
![Photographic print, No. 3, Pocahontas [train], barrels by Shawsville on its night run to Cincinnati, 1955 Silver gelatin photographic print. Framed. Image depicts Norfolk and Western Train No. 3, the Pocahontas, in a shroud of exhaust with 13 cars of Christmas mail and passengers.](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_590px_breakpoint_/public/Collection%20Item_Norfolk%20Western%20Train%20No%203%20Pocahontas_OWinstonLink.1990.115_H3.jpg.webp?itok=E9eIhuhm)
Photographic print, No. 3, Pocahontas [train], barrels by Shawsville on its night run to Cincinnati, 1955

Tintype Portrait of Robert Thaxton
![Medal, Indian badge Silver medal inscribed on obverse, " The King of" and on the reverse "Machotick," [Machodoc], with both sides engraved with flowers and cornucopia.](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_590px_breakpoint_/public/Collection%20Item_IndianBadge_Machotick.1965.12_front_H3.jpg.webp?itok=MEJfsKrY)