There is no debating that the majority of us enjoy lists. No, not the honey-do kind of lists that keeps us busy all weekend with household chores. We mean lists that rank things in order of their importance or significance. Think American Top 40. Think the 20 best moments in college football history. Think the five best pitchers to ever play baseball, or the 10 most important presidents in American history. America’s 15 best beaches, or the top 50 movies of all time. Those are the kind of lists we’re talking about. The ones that generate discussion, disagreement and debate. Those are the kind of lists we love.

For this year’s issue of Progress, which will be published in the Sunday edition of The Tidewater News, we decided to come up with our own list: The 20 most significant events in Western Tidewater history. It was fun coming up with our list. It was even more fun deciding where each event should rank. Some of the items that made our list, when you see them, will be obvious as to why they are there. Others, maybe not as much. We feel pretty good about the list that we’ve come up with but expect some of you may not completely agree. If so, we invite you to write to us and let us know. We’d love to share your dissenting viewpoints in an upcoming edition of The Tidewater News. Otherwise, we hope you sit back, relax and enjoy our 2015 Progress issue. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.