In 1609, the disappearance of the Sea Venture (the largest ship in the largest fleet, the Third Supply) was sensational news. It was the equivalent of something going viral now. So, Shakespeare would definitely have known about it. But, just a year later, when the survivors arrived in Virginia unscathed, the story took a glorious turn. By late fall 1610, everyone in England would have known that the Sea Venture had wrecked on the Isle of Devils (modern-day Bermuda). It was this specific shipwreck that inspired Shakespeare to write The Tempest. And it is the survivors of the shipwreck that formed Bermuda Hundred on the shores of the James River in Virginia. And voila! A Shakespeare-Virginia connection.
