This is Angela Odell, and you are listening to Real Cool History for Kids, a podcast show featuring history told from a distinctly biblical worldview perspective. Welcome to an adventure.

Welcome to episode 156 of Real Cool History for Kids. This episode is for Brown and Herald, who wanted to hear the story of the mysterious lost

colony of Roanoke.

Hey, Brownen, this one's for you.

I've told you guys about the colony of Jamestown in 1607 and about how the pilgrims came and settled the colony of Plymouth in 1620.

But did you know that these colonies were not the first English attempt at establishing a colony in the New World, which is what the Europeans called

the Americas. To learn the whole story of that first colony of Roanoke, we have to travel back in

time, way back to the late 1500s. This was a time when maps were, well, they weren't like what they are now, they were

incomplete. There were whole sections not even known about so they couldn't draw them. And the ocean was

full of danger, and America was still an unknown wilderness to the people of Europe.

In 1584, Queen Elizabeth I of England gave permission to a man named Sir Walter Raleigh

to begin colonizing North America.

Raleigh never actually came to America himself, but he sent people to explore and set up a colony.

The first group of men landed on Roanoke Island, which is off the coast of what we now call

North Carolina. They tried to build a settlement there in 1585, but they ran into a lot of

trouble. First, they didn't have enough food. That's a big, big, big problem, isn't it? And they didn't

get along well with the local Native American tribes.

And mostly, they just weren't prepared for life in the wilderness.

After about a year, the entire group just gave up and went home to England.

But Raleigh didn't give up his idea of colonizing.

In 1587, a new group of settlers came to Roanoke.

This time, it wasn't just soldiers and explorers. It was families. It was a group of families.

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