From April 1607 three ships arrived in Jamestown the settlement itself was expanding and this in turn created opportunity back in the UK in the towns of East and West Cowes for merchants, tradesmen and artisans who would provide services for all that was involved in keeping these new world provinces serviced.
The earliest instance of smuggling found on the Island (although undoubtedly not the first!), was in February 1395 when the Rector of Freshwater, Thomas Symonde received a writ of summons on a charge of smuggling wool into France, which is confirmed in Wykehams Register.
The 1968 festival was minuscule in comparison with the later shows , with the Airplane being the sole overseas act , the whole thing being held over only one night and the sheer scale of the publicity campaign and press coverage was dwarfed by the later shows .
The 1969 Isle of Wight Festival was a far more ambitious affair than the previous years bash , which only had Airplane as the overseas headliner and not a lot of other big names to back them up.
The 1970 Pop Festival although better organised than previous attempts, it had everything stacked against it, the locals, the venue , and the numbers who turned up !
The first is the big landslide at Gore Cliff in 1928 that cut off the coastal road that ran from Ventnor to Blackgang filmed the day after. The road had to be relocated inland.
