To provide defense against these sporadic attacks, the early settlers erected a series of forts in the area. Wood's Fort guarded the Forks-of-the-River just downstream from Newport, and McCoy's Fort and Whitson's Fort defended the area to the south.
The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter.
Earth, the fifth largest planet in the solar system, is the only one known to support life. It revolves around the sun in about 365 days. Estimated to be 4.5 billion to 5 billion years old, this planet has one natural satellite, the moon.