well, if you may know, may 13th is where they land on jamestown island. so that's a long time, and that was a problem. and they came in here with a food deficit right away, because it took too long to get here. they were instructed to go 100 miles from the coast, so that they would be protected from any raids from spanish. and that was the real fear, although they had a treaty in 1604 where they were not supposed to be worried about them. but you can't go -- as i was saying, the falls of the river at richmond, can't go 100 miles. so the fallback was to settle on some island that was strong by nature, is what -- it's a quote. strong by nature means it's surrounded by water, so it could be protected. they also decided, and this is possibili important, they said they chose the island too, because the channel was so close to the shore they could tie the ships. now, the channel -- that ferryboat out there is in the channel. so the conventional wisdom was that they tie the ships there, that's where they're going to have the fort, where the fort was built. and t

then the island itself, the original site of jamestown is comanaged by the national park service in preservation, virginia. so it's an unusual public private partnership that goes on here. the park service owns the majority of the island, 1500 acres. preservation, virginia, has around 23. but their 23 acres incorporates the site of the original fort. the church, the church tower, and the last government building that was on the property. so they've got a lot of history condensed in that 23 acres. and it's the it's preservation, virginia, who are doing the archaeology that visitors will see on the site today. we call our project jamestown rediscovery. so we're the jamestown rediscovery project of preservation, virginia. we do not get federal support and we do not get state support for our work. so we're highly reliant on donations, visitors coming because we get half of the gate receipts from visitors coming through. and grants. that's how we survive. and it's hard in these times. this site is incredibly rich. it's just amazing. and we've been walking over the material all these years, you know,

. >> tour the jamestown island colony date. since the rediscovery of the colony, it has yielded more than 1.5 million artifacts. visit the lab at 2:00 with the senior curator. join in the conversation. live saturday at 2:30 p.m. eastern. part of american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. >>> nato will hold its summit in chicago later this month. next, u.s. ambassador to nato ivo daalder talks about the summit. the council on foreign relations hosted this one-hour event. >> welcome, everybody. to tonight's council on foreign relations meeting. i want to go through our standard stuff here, but remind you to please completely turn off all your -- not just put them on vibrate, but cell phones and all wireless devices to avoid interference with the sound system. i remind you this is an "on the record" session. before we begin with the program, the council is pleased to announce the roll out of a report of the council-sponsored innocent task force on turkey and copies of the task force's report will be released at a meeting in new

case -- >> that piece is in there. >> this program is one of a multipart look at archaeology on jamestown island, virginia. check the "american history tv" website, cspan.org/history for schedule information. the national counsel of public history held their meeting in milwaukee, wisconsin. american history tv spoke with -- next, joanne free man and university of chicago professor william collins describe acts of violence in the u.s. congress leading up to the civil war and checks on war power in the modern era. professor freeman is working on a book entitled field of blood, violence in america. american history tv is at a organization of american historians annual meeting in milwaukee and we are going to talk next about congress and american politics with joanne freeman, a history professor at yale with professor william howell from the university of chicago and europe, political american politics professor. thanks for joining us. let's start off, professor freeman, with a book you've been working on called field of blood congressional violence in america. congressional violence. normally when

this is jamestown island, that crummy-looking kind of olive green watery looking place that's so good for mosquitos. still us. but just inland from it, you can see some lighter yellow, and that's the farmland. in fact, some of it is part of the james river flood plain and it has naturally fertile soil. wonderful for corn. the land itself is going to vary. ancient flood plains, i marked them out in this map. i still don't like the map, what i like is 3d and color, but i hand drew it so it has limitations. ignore the big black stuff, but the

in a marsh like this, this is part of jamestown island. it's not a fully freshwater marsh. it has a little too much salt in it, but look at the reeds. if you're going to use reeds to make mats and mats to make houses, you're going to wind up going into the marshes, mucky though it is. so you want all sorts of things. all eco zones got used for something. the eco zone with the least use, ironically back then, was beaches. you can't get food on them. but you can put off a canoe from them if you have to, and it's usually around beaches or even little pocket beaches that you start your fence out, your hedging, to make a fish trap in the estuary. but marshes are useful. english didn't understand this. ironically in parts of england, they were and still do raise exactly that species, fragmitis cuminus. but the settlers who came over here was thinking, we can't sell these. definitely swamps, swamps were extremely useful. the english were going to call them deserts. to the indians, this is where you might find a bread basket. there are higher grounds that will have trees, including

. >> this program is one of a multipart look at archaeology on jamestown island, virginia. check the "american history tv" website, cspan.org/history for schedule information. this discussion is from a conference on the presidency and civil rights held at john f. kennedy presidential library and museum. among the topics, if dr's world war ii interment of japanese americans, president truman's desegregation of the armed forces and president eisenhower's five appointments to the supreme court justices in faber of desegregation. we hear of attempts on first lady roosevelt's life because of he her efforts of integration and returning world war ii veterans on civil active. this program is about one hour and 20 minutes. >> good afternoon, i'm david ferio. it's a pleasure to welcome you this afternoon. this conferencen the presidency and civil rights. as you nknow the national archie is is charged with preserving archives to the most important documents, the records we safeguard are part of the backbone, important pieces of the story of the american journey. they contain accounts

this is jamestown island, that green looking place that is so good for mosquitos, still is. but just inland from it, you can see some lighter yellow, and that's the farmland. in fact, some of it is part of the james river flood plain and it has naturally fertile soil. wonderful for corn. the land it self is going to vary. ancient flood plains, i marked them out in this map. i still don't like the map, what i like is 3d and color, but i hand drew it so it has limititations. ignore the big black stuff, but there are big flood plains all up and down the rivers. that is where you're likely to find the corn growing soil and also the flatter soil that you want if you're going to have a soil, less like leto erode. indian could be picky. the women had apparently have very definite ideas about what would make a good corn crop. so do modern scientists. funny thing, and do they correlate? well, i checked with a scientist. i actually did want to talk to the soil scientist, but i went into soil map county by county, had done it for delaware, coastal plain of maryland, virginia, and north

. >> tore the jamestown island colony with the project director. the colony has yielded more than 1.5 million unique artifacts. take the tourists starting at 1:30 p.m. eastern. joining the conversation live at 2:30 p.m. eastern, part of history tv. over the past year, the cspan local content vehicle city tour has taken book-tv and american history to be on the road from tampa to savannah, charleston to knoxville, birmingham to bachelor's and last month in oklahoma city. they have visited places that define a city's heritage and literary life. june 2 and 3, watch our programming from wichita, kansas. that is on c-span 2 m3. >> next, president obama concluding a two-day trip to the west coast visiting reno, nevada. the president is urging lawmakers to cut red tape so homeowners who have been paying their mortgages on time can refinance at lower rates. refinancing applications have increased 50% since the president announced last fall. this is about 20 minutes. [applause] >> you guys can come closer. you don't have to stay way back there. good afterno

jamestown in 1893. and so we've got a long history of stewardship of the island, which the ladies who started the apva which is now known as preservation virginia, they recognized this as america's birthplace. they wanted to preserve it. new england got all the glory because jamestown had disappeared. all that stood was a church tower, but the site itself, the original fort was thought to be washed away into the james river. and there had been searches for it on preservation virginia property especially around the anniversary date, 1957 they looked for the fort. the park service did. they had archaeologists out there. they said, nope, there's no sign of it on dry land. it's gone. and if you would come out here as a tourist, the park ranger would point out to the river and say, you know, that's where it is. that's james fort out there. and there was a lone cypress tree that used to stand out in the river all by itself, and that kind of marked the territory. but we thought, you know, with our anniversary coming up, the 400th anniversary, in 2007, we were thinking maybe it's time to mink again. we know a littl