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Walter Raleigh

3 stories mention Walter Raleigh on DeadlyCurious.

The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Roanoke Island, North Carolina

The 115 English Colonists Found Gone Without Trace From an Island Off North Carolina in August 1590 With Only the Word CROATOAN Carved on a Tree

John White returned to the Roanoke colony on 18 August 1590 — three years after he had left for England to resupply — to find the entire 115-person colony gone. The houses were dismantled, the heavier equipment buried, and the word CROATOAN was carved on a post. White assumed the colonists had moved to the Croatoan tribe's island 50 miles south. He never returned to confirm. Their fate is unresolved.

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The Cabinet June 24, 2026 · Syon House, Middlesex

The English Mathematician Who Made Galileo's Telescopic Discoveries Months Earlier and Published None of Them

Thomas Harriot observed the Moon through a telescope in July 1609, sunspots in late 1610, and the moons of Jupiter probably in early 1610. Each of these observations was made independently of Galileo, in some cases earlier. Harriot published nothing. He died in 1621 with about 5,000 pages of unpublished astronomical manuscripts.

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The Cabinet June 24, 2026 · Syon Park, London

The English Mathematician Who Saw Sunspots Six Months Before Galileo and Published Nothing

Thomas Harriot observed sunspots in December 1610 — months before Galileo's published priority claim — telescopically observed the Moon weeks before Galileo's *Sidereus Nuncius*, and worked out the law of refraction twenty years before Snell. He published almost none of it. He died in 1621 of nasal cancer leaving over 8,000 pages of unpublished manuscripts.

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