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Social Studies 5: The First English Colonies 161 Views
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Description:
We don't blame the new settlers for abandoning Roanoke. If we sailed up on a creepy ghost town island like that, we'd be rowin' oak as fast as we could all the way back to England.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Coop and Dino singing]
- 00:13
Today, we're going to be focusing on a very significant and important place in the history
- 00:17
of America.
- 00:18
And it's riiiiight here… [McDonalds store]
- 00:20
Wait, what? No. Not McDonald's.
Full Transcript
- 00:22
Here.
- 00:23
Roanoke Island, one of the very first English colonies in America.
- 00:26
It all started with a man named Sir Walter Raleigh, who looked exactly like you would
- 00:30
expect someone from the 16th century to look. [Walter Raleigh appears]
- 00:33
Funny hat? Check. Curly mustache? Check. Ridiculous looking clothing? Check check check.
- 00:38
Raleigh started a colony of about 100 men on Roanoke Island, but he never actually went [Colony arrives on an island in a ship]
- 00:42
himself, the lazy cat.
- 00:44
Of course, the local native peoples weren't too happy, prompting fights between
- 00:48
the two groups. [Natives and colonists fighting]
- 00:48
But hey, you probably wouldn't be too pleased if 100 men moved into your house and started
- 00:52
hogging the remote so they could watch Dancing With the Stars, or something… [Colonist watching TV in natives home]
- 00:56
Thankfully, another guy by the name of Sir Francis Drake just happened to stop by on
- 01:00
one of his voyages.
- 01:01
He saw all the fighting, was like, "guys, this looks painful and bad, wanna just go
- 01:05
home to England and have some tea?" and all the settlers were like, "yes, please. Can
- 01:08
we watch Dancing With the Stars, too?" [Settlers agree to watch Dancing with the Stars]
- 01:10
…Okay, maybe that last part isn't true, but they did all go home.
- 01:13
But here's where some weird stuff starts happening...
- 01:16
When Raleigh sent some supplies over, he found the entire island abandoned. So he left some
- 01:20
men to guard the island until some more settlers could arrive. [Men guarding the island]
- 01:23
But when those settlers arrived, they found the island yet again abandoned.
- 01:28
Obviously, they were a bit weirded out, so they asked Raleigh to send more help.
- 01:31
And when he did... you guessed it, those settlers found the island abandoned again!
- 01:36
And if that's not "spooky horror movie" enough for you, then get this: the only clue these
- 01:41
new settlers found on the island was the name of a nearby island, Croatoan [Croatoan carved into a tree]
- 01:46
carved into a tree.
- 01:48
The mystery of this island has never been solved, despite it being officially the #1
- 01:52
creepiest thing to happen in the history of America –well, except for maybe the original
- 01:56
Ronald McDonald…talk about nightmare material– but it didn't stop settlers from coming over [Children run away from Ronald McDonald]
- 02:00
and establishing new colonies.
- 02:02
But seeing as the first winter in the New World resulted in the death of more than half
- 02:06
the colonists due to disease, starvation, and war, maybe they should have heeded this [Colonist sitting by a camp fire]
- 02:10
super-duper creepy warning a bit more.
- 02:12
No, not the McDonald's thing. Who's making this video?
- 02:15
That thing.
- 02:17
Because as a general rule of thumb, any time there's an ominous word carved into a tree
- 02:20
on an abandoned island, well, that's a pretty good sign that you should just turn back home [Boy and girl walking along a path]
- 02:24
and never, ever leave again.
- 02:25
No matter how much you're craving McNuggets and a McFlurry. [Ronald McDonald appears behind a tree]
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