Timeline North Carolina
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620Mil BC In 1975 animal fossils
of about this time were discovered in North Carolina.
(www.todayinsci.com/6/6_04.htm)
1524 Mar 19, Giovanni de
Verrazano of France sighted land around area of Carolinas.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1584 Mar 25, Sir Walter
Raleigh, English explorer, courtier, and writer, renewed Humphrey
Gilbert's patent to explore North America. He went on to settle the
Virginia colony on Roanoke Island (North Carolina), naming it after
the virgin queen.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.23)(MC, 3/25/02)
1585 Jul 13, A group of 108
English colonists, led by Sir Richard Grenville, reached Roanoke
Island, North Carolina. Roanoke Island near North Carolina became
England's first foothold in the New World. Sir Walter Raleigh sent a
detachment of 108 men to build a fort on the island. The detachment
included two scientists, Thomas Hariot, a surveyor, mathematician,
astronomer and oceanographer, and Joachim Gans, a metallurgist. John
White, English artist and surveyor, was part of the expedition.
(NG, Geographica, Jan, 94)(HN, 7/13/98)(ON,
10/01, p.1)
1586 Jun 18, English colonists
sailed from Roanoke Island, N.C., after failing to establish
England's first permanent settlement in America. The Roanoke
colonists returned to England with 2 friendly Indians. They left
behind 15 well-provisioned men to maintain the English claim.
(AP, 6/18/07)(ON, 10/01, p.1)
1586 Jun 23, Sir Francis Drake
encountered the Roanoke Island Hurricane off the Atlantic coast.
Harsh weather caused Drake to evacuate the settlers back to England.
(SFC, 6/23/09, p.D8)
1586 In America relations with
the local Indians soured after the English soldiers attacked a
village, and soon the English returned home.
(NG, Geographica, Jan, 94)
1587 Jul 22, A second English
colony of 114-150 people under John White, financed by Sir Walter
Raleigh, was established on Roanoke Island off North Carolina. The
colony included 17 women and 9 children. Croatoan Indians informed
them that Roanoke Indians had killed the men from the previous
expedition. A three-year draught, the worst in 800 years, peaked
during this time.
(AP, 7/22/97)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A3)(SFEM, 11/15/98,
p.23)(ON, 10/01, p.1)
1587 Aug 9, A party of the
English Roanoke settlers attacked a Roanoke Indian village and
killed some Croatoan Indians by accident.
(ON, 10/01, p.2)
1587 Aug 13, Gov. White
rewarded Manteo, a Croatoan Indian who had accompanied him to
England and back, for his many services and declared him Lord of the
Roanoke and Dasamonquepeio.
(ON, 10/01, p.2)
1587 Aug 18, In the Roanoke
Island colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare became parents of a baby
girl whom they name Virginia Dare, the first English child born on
what is now Roanoke Island, N.C., then considered Walter Raleigh’s
second settlement in Roanoke, Virginia. Virginia Dare, born to the
daughter of John White, became the first child of English parents to
be born on American soil. However, the colony she was born into
ended up mysteriously disappearing.
(HN, 8/18/98)(PC, 1992, p.203)(AP, 8/18/07)
1587 John White returned to
England to pick up needed supplies for the Roanoke colony.
(ON, 10/01, p.2)
1588 An eye-witness account of
the New World was provided by "A Briefe and True Account of the New
Found Land of Virginia," written by Thomas Harriot. It recounted
English attempts from 1584-1588 to colonize what later became known
as eastern North Carolina and encouraged further settlement and
investment there. In 1590 Flemish engraver Theodor de Bry published
an illustrated edition featuring paintings by English colonist John
White.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.24)(Arch, 5/05, p.26)
1590 Aug 15, A fleet commanded
by John Wattes arrived at the Outer Banks of the Carolinas. Roanoke
Gov. John White was a passenger in the fleet.
(ON, 10/01, p.3)
1590 Aug 16, Captain Spicer and
6 men drowned when their landing boat capsized in heavy surf off
Roanoke Island.
(ON, 10/01, p.3)
1590 Aug 18, John White, the
leader of 117 colonists sent in 1587 to Roanoke Island (North
Carolina) to establish a colony, returned from a trip to England to
find the settlement deserted. No trace of the settlers was ever
found. White returned to England and died there around 1606.
(ON, 10/01, p.4)(HN, 8/18/02)
1663 Mar 24, Charles II of
England awarded lands known as Carolina in America to eight members
of the nobility who assisted in his restoration. [see Apr 6]
(HN, 3/24/99)
1663 Apr 6, King Charles II
signed the Carolina Charter. [see Mar 24]
(MC, 4/6/02)
1709 Sep 3, The 1st major group
of Swiss and German colonists reached the Carolinas.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1729 Jul 25, North Carolina
became a royal colony.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1711 Sep 22, The Tuscarora
Indian War began with a massacre of settlers in North Carolina,
following white encroachment that included the enslaving of Indian
children.
(HN, 9/22/98)
1718 Jun 10, Blackbeard's ship,
the Queen Anne's Revenge, ran aground about this time and soon sank
off the coast of Beaufort, NC. In 1997 underwater archeologist
raised a canon believed to be from this ship.
(SFC, 3/4/96, p.A4)(SFC,10/24/97,
p.A3)(www.qaronline.org/history/search.htm)
1718 Nov 22, A force of British
troops under Lt. Robert Maynard captured English pirate Edward Teach
(b.~1682), better known as "Blackbeard" (aka Captain Drummond),
during a battle near Ocracoke Island, off the North Carolina coast.
They beheaded him. The governor of Virginia had put a price of 100
pounds on his head.
(AP,
11/22/97)(www.outerbankschamber.com/relocation/history/ocracoke.cfm)
1761 In western North Carolina
British soldiers razed Kituwha, the heart of the Cherokee Nation.
Punitive raids here were repeated in 1776.
(Arch, 9/02, p.70)
1771 Mark Catesby had his work:
“The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands”
printed in London.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)
1775 May 20, North Carolina
became the first colony to declare its independence. Citizens of
Mecklenburg County, NC, declared independence from Britain.
(HN, 5/20/98)(MC, 5/20/02)
1776 Apr 12, North Carolina's
Fourth Provincial Congress adopted the Halifax Resolves, which
authorized the colony's delegates to the Continental Congress to
support independence from Britain.
(AP, 4/12/07)
1781 Feb 25, American General
Nathanael Greene crossed the Dan River on his way to his March 15th
confrontation with Lord Charles Cornwallis at Guilford Court House,
N.C.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1781 Mar 15, Gen. Nathanael
Greene engaged British forces under Cornwallis at Guilford
Court-House, North Carolina. Greene retreated after inflicting
severe casualties on Cornwallis’ army.
(ON, 12/01, p.10)
1781 Mar, The Continental
cavalry under Col. Henry Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee, surprised
and cut to pieces the Loyalist cavalry near Hillsborough, NC. Ninety
Loyalists were killed with no losses to Lee.
(AH, 10/07, p.29)
1784 Trenton was founded.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A3)
1789 Nov 21, North Carolina
became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 11/21/97)
1789 The University of North
Carolina was chartered. It was the first state university in the
U.S. to begin instruction, in 1795. The University of Georgia was
the first state university chartered, in 1785, but was not
established until 1801.
(HNQ, 12/3/01)
1795 Feb 13, The University of
North Carolina became the first U.S. state university to admit
students with the arrival of Hinton James, who was the only student
on campus for two weeks.
(AP, 2/13/04)
1795 Nov 2, James Knox Polk,
the 11th president of the United States, was born in Mecklenburg
County, N.C.
(AP, 11/2/97)(HN, 11/2/98)
1808 Dec 29, Andrew Johnson,
the 17th president of the United States who succeeded Lincoln, was
born in a 2-room shack in Raleigh, N.C.
(AP, 12/29/97)(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)(HN, 12/29/98)
1813 Harriet Jacobs (d.1897)
was born in North Carolina. In 1861 she authored “Incidents in the
Life of a Slave Girl” under the pseudonym Linda Brent. Jacobs later
escaped to NY. In 2004 Jean Fagan Yellin (73) authored “Harriet
Jacobs: A Life.”
(SFC, 6/23/04, p.E1)
1852 Nov 21, Duke Univ.,
founded in 1838 as Union Institute, was chartered as Normal College.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1857 Sep 12, A wooden-hulled
steamship, the SS Central America under Capt. William L. Herndon,
sank off the coast of Georgia. The ship carried 21 tons of gold from
California to New York. The brig Marine and the Norwegian bark Ellen
rescued some 141 people. 425 (428) of 528 (578) passengers were
drowned. The survivors included Ansel Ives Easton (d.1868) and his
new wife Adeline. The wreck was in 8,000 feet of water and in
1987-1988 salvage operations were begun by Tommy Thompson. He hauled
in $500 million worth of gold bars, coins and nuggets. After a court
battle he was awarded 92% of the gold. The story is told in the 1998
book “Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue sea” by Gary Kinder. The loss of
the gold sparked “The Panic of 1857.” The SS Central America sank
off Cape Romain, SC.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.W3)(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.W9)(SFEC,
6/28/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.W16)(WSJ, 1/28/00, p.B1)(ON, 7/01,
p.2)(MC, 9/12/01)(Ind, 12/1/01, 5A)
1859 North Carolina’s Bodie
Island lighthouse was built. It was blown up during the Civil War
and rebuilt in 1872.
(SSFC, 9/19/04, p.D14)
1861 May 9, The Banshee, a
British ship designed to run the American blockade on Confederate
ports, departed Nassau for Wilmington, NC, on the first of many
successful runs directed by Thomas E. Taylor, a shipping clerk for
the Anglo-Confederate Trading Company.
(ON, 8/09, p.11)
1861 May 20, North Carolina
voted to secede from the Union and became the 11th and last state to
do so.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)
1861 Jul 14, Naval Engagement
at Wilmington, NC. USS Daylight established a blockade.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1861 Aug 27, Union troops made
an amphibious landing at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1861 Aug 28, The Battle of Fort
Hatteras, NC.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1862 Feb 7, Federal fleet
attacked Roanoke Island, NC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1862 Feb 8, Union troops under
Gen. Ambrose Burnside defeated a Confederate defense force at the
Battle of Roanoke Island, N.C.
(HN, 2/8/99)
1862 Mar 14, Battle of New
Bern, NC. General Burnside conquered New Bern, a strategic port and
rail hub.
(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1862 Sep 21, William Benjamin
Gould and 7 other black men stole a boat and rowed past Fort
Caswell, NC. They were picked up the next day by the Union warship
Cambridge. In 2002 Prof. W.B. Gould published his
great-grandfather’s diary “Dairy of a Contraband: The Civil War
Passage of a Black Sailor.”
(SFC, 9/2/02, p.A1)
1862 Dec 31, The USS Monitor
sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras, NC., while being towed by the
Rhode Island. 16 officers and seamen died. In 1973 scientists from
North Carolina’s Duke University discovered the deteriorating relic
16 miles from the coast, in 240 feet of water. In 1975 the site was
designated the nation’s first marine sanctuary, and it was the first
shipwreck to be named a National Historic Landmark in the United
States. In 2002 the turret was raised.
(SFC, 8/6/02, p.A2)(HNQ, 11/29/02)(ON, 10/08,
p.5)
1863 Jan 25, Battle of
Kingston, NC.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1863 Mar 18, Confederate women
rioted in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in
the South.
(HN, 3/18/00)
1864 Feb 29, Lt. William B.
Cushing led a landing party from the USS Monticello to Smithville,
NC, in an attempt to capture Confederate Brig. Gen. Louis Hebert,
only to discover that Hebert and his men had already moved on
Wilmington.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1864 Oct 1, The Condor, a
British blockade-runner, was grounded near Fort Fisher, North
Carolina.
(HN, 10/1/98)
1864 Dec 20-27, Battle of Ft.
Fisher, NC.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1865 Jan 13-14, Union fleet
bombed Fort Fisher, NC.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1865 Jan 15, Union troops
captured Fort Fisher at Wilmington, North Carolina. It was the last
major Confederate port open to blockade runners.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1865 Jan 16, General Sherman
began a march through the Carolinas.
(HN, 1/16/99)
1865 Feb 18, Union troops
forced the Confederates to abandon Fort Anderson, N.C.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1865 Feb 22, Federal troops
captured Wilmington, N.C. (Fort Anderson).
(HN, 2/22/98)(MC, 2/22/02)
1865 Feb, Major General William
Tecumseh Sherman had made a swift and steady advance through Georgia
and South Carolina, and by late February 1865, his army was
approaching Charlotte, North Carolina.
(HN, 2/8/98)
1865 Mar 7-10, Battles were
fought around Kingston, NC.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1865 Mar 8, Battle of Kingston,
NC (Wilcox's ridge, Wise's Forks).
(MC, 3/8/02)
1865 Mar 10, Battle of Monroe's
Crossroads, NC.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1865 Mar 11, General Sherman
and his forces occupied Fayetteville, N.C. Union General William
Sherman considered Judson Kilpatrick, his cavalry chief, "a hell of
a damn fool." At Monroe's Cross Roads, N.C., his carelessness and
disobedience of orders proved Sherman's point.
(HN, 3/11/98)
1865 Mar 16, Union troops
pushed past Confederate blockers at the Battle of Averasborough,
N.C., and left 1,500 casualties.
(HN, 3/16/99)(MC, 3/16/02)
1865 Mar 19, Battle of
Bentonville: Confederates retreated from Greenville, NC. [see Mar
20-21]
(MC, 3/19/02)
1865 Mar 20, Battle of
Bentonville, N.C.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1865 Mar 21, The Battle of
Bentonville, N.C. ended, marking the last Confederate attempt to
stop. Union General William Sherman considered Judson Kilpatrick,
his cavalry chief, 'a hell of a damn fool.' At Monroe's Cross Roads,
N.C., his carelessness and disobedience of orders proved Sherman's
point.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1865 Mar 23, General Sherman
and Cox's troops reached Goldsboro, NC.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1865 Apr 13, Union forces under
Gen. Sherman began their devastating march through Georgia.
Sherman's troops took Raleigh, NC.
(HN, 4/13/98)(MC, 4/13/02)
1865 Apr 18, Confederate Gen
Joseph Johnston surrendered to Gen W.T. Sherman in North Carolina.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1865 Apr 23, Union cavalry
units continued to skirmish with Confederate forces in Henderson,
North Carolina and Munsford Station, Alabama.
(HN, 4/23/99)
1865 Apr 26, Confederate Gen.
Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee at Durham, NC,
to Union Gen. W.T. Sherman.
(HN, 4/26/98)(MC, 4/26/02)
1865 Princeville was founded by
freed slaves on the Tar River in a swamp across from Tarboro.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.A12)
1866 Apr 2, Pres. ended war in
Ala, Ark, Fla, Ga, Miss, La, NC, SC, Ten & Va.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1868 Jun 25, Florida, Alabama,
Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were
re-admitted to the Union.
(AP, 6/25/97)
1869 Apr 12, North Carolina
legislature passed an anti-Klan Law.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1870 Feb 26, Wyatt Outlaw,
black leader of Union League in North Carolina, was lynched.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1870 North Carolina’s Cape
Hatteras lighthouse was built. In 1999 $10 million was spent to move
and save it from the encroaching sea.
(SSFC, 9/19/04, p.D14)
1870s Real estate speculators
developed Highlands a mountain resort town. In 2001 Randolph
Shaffner authored ”Heart of the Blue Ridge: Highlands, North
Carolina.”
(WSJ, 7/31/01, p.A16)
1871 Mar 22, William Holden of
NC became the 1st US governor removed by impeachment.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1871 The 208-foot, brick Cape
Hatteras Lighthouse was built. In 1999 it was moved 2,900 feet
inland.
(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A3)
1876 Benedictine monks in North
Carolina established Belmont Abbey as a monastery and school. In
2007 they introduced a program in Motorsports Management.
(WSJ, 10/4/07, p.A1)
1876 Lewis R. Redmond
(1854-1906) of North Carolina shot and killed a revenue agent near
Brevard, NC, when the agent tried to arrest him for making and
transporting illegal whiskey.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.W11)
1880 Richard Etheridge was
promoted to Keeper of the North Carolina Life-Saving Station #17. He
was the 1st black man to be appointed a Station Keeper in the US
Life-Saving Service.
(ON, 1/02, p.1)
1881 Apr 7, Lewis R. Redmond, a
North Carolina moonshiner wanted for murder, was cornered at his
home. He was shot 6 times while trying to escape, but survived and
was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He served just 3
years and returned to work for a licensed distillery.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.W11)
1881 Aug 27, A hurricane hit
Florida and the Carolinas; about 700 died.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1881 David and William White
founded their White Furniture Co. in Mebane, NC. The business
continued until 1993.
(SFC, 1/25/06, p.G2)
1882 Bishop Crittenden authored
the dime novel “The Entwined Lives of Miss Gabrielle Austin,
Daughter of the Late Rev. Ellis C. Austin, and Redmond, the Outlaw,
Leader of the North Carolina Moonshiners.”
(WSJ, 3/20/09,
p.W11)(www.theridgebooks.com/si/7107.html)
1884 Feb 19, A series of
tornadoes left an estimated 800 people dead in 7 US states (Miss,
Ala, NC, SC, Tenn., Ky & In).
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(MC, 2/19/02)
1887 James William Cannon
founded Cannon Mills in Concord, NC. It was bought by Fieldcrest
Mills in 1986, which in turn was bought by Pillowtex in 1997. In
2003 Pillowtex went bankrupt.
(WSJ, 8/1/03, p.B1)
1888 Frederick Law Olmsted,
landscape designer, traveled to Ashville to plan the landscape of
the Biltmore estate of George Vanderbilt. He had his portrait
painted there by W.S. Sargent. Olmsted's son, Rick, sat in for the
completion of the painting.
(WSJ, 5/26/99, p.A20)
1888 William Henry Belk founded
a dry goods store in Monroe, NC. By 1960 the partnerships produced a
chain of 362 Belk Inc. department stores under the leadership
of his son, John Montgomery Belk (1920-2007).
(WSJ, 8/25/07,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belk)
1889 National Geographic
depicted the area of Ashville, N.C. and inaugurated its famed map
series. In 1998 a complete set of NG maps was made available on
CD-ROM by Mindscape.
(SFC, 11/3/98, p.D3)
1890s In New Bern N.C.,
Pharmacist Caleb Bradham produced Brad’s drink, a mixture of syrup
and soda water, as a digestive aid and energy booster. It became a
hit and was renamed in 1898 to Pepsi-Cola. The story of Pepsi,
“Pepsi, 100 Years” was later written by Bob Stoddard of Upland, Ca.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.B2)
1895 Feb 21, The NC Legislature
adjourned for the day to mark the death of Frederick Douglass.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1896 Jan 12, The 1st X-ray
photo on record in the US was made by Dr. Henry Louis Smith at
Davidson, NC. Dr. Henry Smith shot a bullet into the hand of a dead
human body and made a 15 minute x-ray exposure to reveal the bullet.
(SFEC, 6/14/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 1/12/02)
1896 Oct 11, Richard Etheridge
(d.1900) and his life-saving team rescued the hurricane survivors of
the E.S. Newman on Pea Island. Pea Island later became part of
Hatteras Island.
(ON, 1/02, p.2)
1898 Nov 9, Some white people
in Wilmington, NC, issued a White Declaration of Independence,
proclaiming "that we will no longer be ruled ... by men of African
origin.
(AP, 11/28/09)
1898
Nov 10, A race riot in Wilmington, NC, left many blacks killed. A
vigilante group of armed supremacists forcibly removed the
Republican city leaders (both black and white) from office, and took
control, burning buildings and shooting blacks. Reports vary from a
coroner’s total of 14 to unconfirmed eyewitness reports claiming
scores of deaths.
(http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/nc/bio/afro/riot.htm)(WSJ,
1/22/02, p.A11)(AP, 11/28/09)
1900 Oct, The Wright Brothers
began active flying experiments at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)
1901 The Dixie Furniture Co.
was organized in Lexington, NC.
(SFC, 7/25/07, p.G2)
1902 Caleb Bradham launched the
Pepsi-Cola Co. from the backroom of his pharmacy in New Bern, N.C.
He was awarded the Pepsi-Cola trademark in 1903.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.B2)
1902 The Wright Brothers built
a glider based on their new aerodynamics tables. Efficiency was
almost doubled and they made over 1,000 flights at Kill Devil Hills
near Kitty Hawk, NC.
(NPub, 2002, p.6)
1903 Mar 3, North Carolina
became the 1st state requiring registration of nurses.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1903 Dec 17, The Wright
brothers' Flyer I flew for 12 seconds in the first airplane flight
at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The brothers were the sons of a
Dayton, Ohio, bishop (Church of the United Brethren). Orville Wright
made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Orville,
lying prone at the plane's controls, flew a distance of 120 feet in
12 seconds. Wilbur ran beside Flyer's wing tip until it was airborne
to keep the wing from dragging in the sand. Four sustained flights
were made on this day. The 4th flight lasted fifty-nine seconds. The
momentous events of that day received little press attention, since
the reticent Wright brothers feared their ideas would be stolen by
rival aviators. It was not until 1908, after making many refinements
to their flying machine, that the Wrights embarked on a series of
public demonstrations that finally earned them worldwide acclaim. A
one-hour PBS documentary covered their life as part of "The American
Experience."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(AP, 12/17/97)(HNPD,
12/17/98)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SFEC, 9/26/99,
p.B8)
1906 Aug 7, In North Carolina,
a mob defies a court order and lynches three African Americans which
becomes known as "The Lyerly Murders."
(HN, 8/7/99)
1906 James Cannon, textile
tycoon, founded his North Carolina company town Kannapolis.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.30)
1906 The B.F. Huntley Furniture
Co. opened in Winston-Salem, NC. It had been organized as the
Oakland Furniture Co. in 1898. In 1929 it was purchased by the
Simmons Co., then based in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
(SFC, 7/9/08, p.G5)
1908 Olive Dame Campbell came
to the Appalachian Mountains with her minister husband and began
researching the local music. Her music collection was published in
1915 by English musicologist Cecil Sharp. Their work laid the basis
for the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, N.C.
(WSJ, 6/7/01, p.A20)
1909 Aug 11, The SOS distress
signal was first used by an American ship, the Arapahoe, off Cape
Hatteras, N.C.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1918 Mar 25, Howard Cosell,
sportscaster (Monday Night Football), was born in Winston-Salem, NC.
(Internet)
1920 Jul 10, David Brinkley
(d.2003), broadcaster, was born in Wilmington, NC.
(HN, 7/10/01)(MC, 7/10/02)
1922 Aug 17, Ralph Roberts,
actor (Tradition, Gone are the Days), was born in NC.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1922 Dec 24, Ava Gardner,
actress (On the Beach, Night of the Iguana), was born in Grabtown,
NC.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1923 Caleb Bradham sold the
Pepsi-Cola trademark and business for $35,000. He was forced into
bankruptcy after sugar prices plummeted from 22 1/2 cents a pound to
3 1/2 cents.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.B2)
1924 James B. Duke, a cigarette
magnate, donated $40 million to Duke Univ.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A3)
1925 Jul 27, Charlie Poole
(1892-1931) and His North Carolina Ramblers recorded “Don’t Let Your
Deal Go Down Blues” at the NYC studios of Columbia Records.
(WSJ, 7/27/05,
p.D10)(www.emusic.com/artist/11579/11579058.html)
1925 Oct 10, James Buchanon
Duke, the founder of the American Tobacco Company (Lucky Strikes),
died leaving Doris Duke (1924-1993), his only daughter, to inherit
his $125 million tobacco estate.
(SSFC, 2/25/07,
p.G5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan_Duke)
1926 Jan 8, Soupy Sales,
comedian (Soupy Sales Show), was born in NC as Milton Hines.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1928 Apr 8, The 1st Karastan
rug, a machine-made product woven through the back, came off the
loom in Leaksville, NC.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.10)
1933 Black Mountain College in
western North Carolina was founded by Theodore Dreir (d.1997), an
electrical engineer, to develop the educational ideas of John Dewey
with innovation in the arts as characterized by the Bauhaus
movement. Artists who taught there included Merce Cunningham, John
Cage, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, and Edward
Dorn. It closed in 1956.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A20)(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B2)
1934 Aug 23, Sonny (Christian)
Jurgensen, professional football player and sports announcer, was
born in North Carolina.
(HN, 8/23/00)
1934 Sep 10, Charles Kuralt
(d.Jul 4, 1997), TV journalist, was born in Wilmington, NC. He was
known for his popular “On the Road” television program.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A5)(HN, 9/10/00)
1936 Henry Talmadge Link
(1889-1983) took over the Dixie Furniture Co. in Lexington, NC.
Other men joined Link and in the 1950s the corporation was broken up
into 4 companies, each specializing in a different type of
furniture.
(SFC, 7/25/07, p.G2)
1937 Mar 15, The 1st state
contraceptive clinic opened in Raleigh, NC.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1937 Vernon Rudolph (d.1973)
launched Krispy Creme, a donut operation, in Winston-Salem, NC.
Heirs sold the business to Beatrice Foods, which changed the recipe.
Some 20 franchisees bought the company in 1982. the 1st shop outside
the Southeast opened in Indianapolis in 1995. The company went
public in 2000.
(WSJ, 9/3/04, p.A5)
1941 Jul 22, George Clinton,
American musician and the principal architect of P-Funk was born in
North Carolina. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and
Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s.
(www.last.fm/music/George+Clinton)
1941 Katherine Stinson (d.2001)
became the 1st female engineering graduate from North Carolina State
Univ.
(SFC, 8/2/01, p.C2)
1942 Camp Lejeune, a US Marine
Corps Base, was established near Jacksonville, N.C.
(www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/lejeune/)
1943 May 14, Elizabeth Ray,
congressman Wilbur Mills' lover, was born in Marshall, NC.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1945 Aug 3, Ron Hendren, TV
host (Entertainment Tonight), was born in Pinehurst, NC.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1945 Mary Caroline Richards
(d.1999 at 83) joined the faculty at Black Mountain College near
Ashville N.C. Her later books included "The Crossing Point" (1973),
"Opening Our Moral Eye" (1996), "Imagine Inventing Yellow" (1991)
and "Toward Wholeness: Rudolf Steiner Education in America."
(SFC, 9/21/99, p.E4)
1948 Mar 10, Author Zelda
Fitzgerald died in a fire at Highland Hospital, NC. She was locked
in on the 3rd floor while undergoing insulin-induced coma therapy.
In 2001 Kendall Taylor authored "Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom: Zelda
and Scott Fitzgerald, a Marriage."
(HN, 3/10/01)(SSFC, 9/23/01, DB p.61)
1948 Buckminster Fuller and his
students erected the first geodesic dome near Ashville, N.C.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.8)
1950 The first possible
"happening" occurred at Black Mountain College with John Cage,
Charles Olson, Robert Rauschenberg, Franz Kline and Mary Richards.
(SFC, 9/21/99, p.E4)
1950 Hoover Adams founded the
Daily Record in Dunn.
(WSJ, 8/10/01, p.A1)
1951 Aug 12, Charles E. Brady
Jr., USN Commander, astronaut, was born in, Pinehurst, NC.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1952 Feb 16, The FBI arrested
10 members of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina.
(HN, 2/16/98)
1952 Hugh Morton (1921-2006)
inherited Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina and turned it into
a top tourist attraction. In 2008 the mountain and some 2,600
surrounding acres of wilderness were purchased by the state for $12
million. The area will eventually be added to the North Carolina
State Park system.
(WSJ, 9/29/08,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_Mountain)
1953 Sep 5, The 1st privately
operated atomic reactor opened in Raleigh NC.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1954 Frances Grey Patton
(d.2000 at 94) authored her novel “Good Morning Miss Dove.”
(SFC, 4/4/00, p.A20)
1956 Feb 14, The B.F. Huntley
furniture plant in Winston-Salem, NC, was destroyed by fire. The
factory was rebuilt and the Huntley name continued until it was sold
to Thomasville Furniture Industries in 1961.
(SFC, 7/9/08, p.G5)
1956 Mar 11, Curtis L. Brown
Jr., astronaut (STS 47, STS 66, 77, 85, sk:95), was born in NC.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1956 Black Mountain College in
western North Carolina, founded in 1933 by Theodore Dreir (d.1997),
closed.
(www.ibiblio.org/bmc/bmcaboutbmc.html)
1956 Malcom McLean (d.2001 at
87), an entrepreneur from North Carolina, used a converted WW II
tanker called the Ideal X to sail 58 cargo filled containers from
New Jersey to Houston. He named his company Sea-Land Service and is
considered as the founder of container shipping. In 2006 Marc
Levinson authored “The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the
World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.”
(SFC, 5/28/01, p.A17)(SSFC, 2/5/06, p.J1)(Econ,
3/18/06, p.81)
1958 Sep 5, The 1st color video
recording on magnetic tape was presented in Charlotte, NC.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1959 May 4, Randy Travis,
country singer (Diggin' Up Bones), was born in Marshville, NC.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1960 Feb 1, Four black North
Carolina A&T students staged a sit-in in a dime store in
Greensboro, NC, lunch counter, where they'd been refused service, to
begin the first of the historic 1960s sit-ins.
(AP, 2/1/97)(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1960 Feb 23, Whites joined
Negro students in a sit-in at a Winston-Salem, N.C. Woolworth store.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1960 Wilbur Hardee (1917-2008),
opened his first Hardee’s restaurant, in Greenville, NC. The company
went public in 1963.
(SFC, 6/24/08, p.B5)(http://tinyurl.com/6ztal8)
c1960 Trucker Malcom McClean of
North Carolina put freight containers on a cargo ship and launched
the container ship business. His company became Sea-Land.
(WSJ, 3/15/00, p.B1)
1961 Jan 24, A B-52 carrying
two nuclear bombs near Goldsboro, North Carolina encountered a
violent gust. The giant plane rolled completely over, came upright,
and continued rolling inverted a second time before whipping into a
vicious flat spin and breaking up.
(www.willthomasonline.net/willthomasonline/Broken_Arrows.html)
1961-1965 Terry Sanford (d.1998 at 80) served as
the governor.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.C6)
1967 Jul 19, Race riots took
place in Durham, NC.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1967 Jul 22, Carl Sandburg
(89), historian and poet (Abraham Lincoln: Prairie Years), died in
North Carolina.
(AP, 7/22/07)
1969 Feb 13, In North Carolina
the Afro-American Society students of Duke Univ. led a black student
takeover of the Allen Building to spark University action on the
concerns of Black students. The takeover brought attention to issues
such as establishment of an Afro-American studies program, a black
cultural center, and increasing the number of black faculty and
students.
(http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/uabsa/inv/)
1969 Sep 30, In North Carolina
a tax on soft drinks went into effect. A soft drink excise tax is
hereby levied and imposed on and after midnight, September 30, 1969,
upon the sale, use, handling and distribution of all soft drinks,
soft drink syrups and powders, base products and other items
referred to in this section. An excise tax of one cent (1¢) is
levied on each bottled soft drink.
(http://tinyurl.com/kp2saa)
1969 US District Judge James
McMillan ruled that the Charlotte school district was intentionally
segregating students and ordered busing to achieve integration. This
led to the 1971 US Supreme Court ruling to approve the busing plan.
The program was ended in 1999.
(SFC, 9/11/99, p.A3)
1969 John Montgomery Belk
(1920-2007), head of the department store chain Belk Inc., began
serving as Mayor of Charlotte, NC. He served 4 terms to 1977.
(WSJ, 8/25/07, p.A8)
1969-1985 Terry Sanford (d.1998 at 80) served as
the president of North Carolina’s Duke Univ.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.C6)
1970 Feb 17, At Fort Bragg,
North Carolina, Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald’s wife and 2 daughters were
murdered. Dr. MacDonald was convicted of the murders but claimed
that drug-crazed assailants were responsible. The book "Fatal
Vision" by Joe McGinniss recounted the story. In 2005 evidence was
presented that Helena Stoeckley (1953-1983), a defense witness, had
admitted to a prosecutor that she was at MacDonald’s house on the
night of the murder.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/14/05,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_R._MacDonald)
1971 Feb 6, In Wilmington, NC,
Mike's Grocery, a white-owned business, was firebombed. When
firefighters arrived to put out the flames, they were fired upon by
snipers positioned on the roof of Gregory Congregational Church. The
National Guard was mobilized to quell rioting. The violence resulted
in two deaths. Reverend Benjamin Chavis, Jr. of Oxford, North
Carolina, and nine others, eight African American men and one white
woman, were arrested and tried and convicted for arson and
conspiracy in connection with the firebombing. They were sentenced
to nearly 28 years in prison. Chavis Muhammad (b.1948), a member of
the Wilmington 10, was sentenced in 1972 to 34 years in prison. He
spent 4 years in prison before his conviction was overturned on
appeal.
(SFC, 2/25/97,
p.A10)(www.notablebiographies.com/Ch-Co/Chavis-Muhammad-Benjamin.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_Ten)
1971 Feb 21, A series of
tornadoes cut through the lower Mississippi River Valley. The
two-day outbreak, which produced 19 tornadoes, killed 123 people
across 3 states, including 11 in Louisiana, 110 in Mississippi, and
2 in North Carolina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Valley_tornado_outbreak_of_February_1971)
1971 Apr 20, The US Supreme
Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld
the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools. The
ruling allowed Charlotte, NC., and other cities nationwide to use
mandatory busing and student assignment based on race to attempt to
further integrate schools. Swann v. Mecklenburg arose in 1965 when a
black parent, James E. Swann, challenged the system that kept
Charlotte's black students apart from the white majority. In 2001 an
appeals court ruled that the dual school system was dismantled and
busing could end. A failed appeal to the Supreme Court ended the
case in 2002.
(http://tinyurl.com/6lntd5)(SFEC, 7/13/97,
p.D1)(AP, 4/20/07)(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A3)
1972 Sep 16, Marine sergeant
William Miller was shot and killed near Camp Lejeune, NC. In 2009
three people faced murder charges after prosecutors alleged that the
murder was the result of a love triangle centered around Miller’s
ex-wife, Vickie Babbitt. Fellow ex-Marine George Hayden (57), who
married Babbit after Miller’s death, was alleged to have shot
Miller. Ex-Marine Rodger Gill (56) was alleged to have witnessed the
murder.
(SFC, 12/31/09, p.A7)
1972 Nov 7, Jesse Helms
(1921-2008) of North Carolina, who had switched to the Republican
Party in 1970, was elected to the US Senate, the first Republican
from NC in the 20th century.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A2)
1973 Crystal Lee Sutton
(1940-2009) was fired for her pro-union activities at a J.P. Stevens
textile plant in North Carolina. The 1979 film “Norma Rae” was based
on her story. In 1974 the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile workers
Union won the right to represent 3,000 employees at seven Roanoke
Rapids plants in North Carolina.
(SFC, 9/15/09, p.C4)
1974 Mar 7, Duke Univ. and the
North Carolina Department of Archives and History announced the
discovery of the Civil War ship USS Monitor.
(http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/monitor01/finding/finding.html)
1974 Apr 3, A series of 148
deadly tornadoes struck wide parts of the South and Midwest before
jumping across the border into Canada; some 330 people were killed
in 13 states: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky,
Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Total property damage was
estimated at $600 million. In 2007 Mark Levine authored “F5:
Devastation, Survival, and the Most Violent Tornado Outbreak of the
20th Century.”
(AP, 4/3/99)(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)(SSFC, 9/4/05,
p.A7)(WSJ, 6/16/07, p.P10)
1974 Sep 11, In North Carolina
an Eastern Airlines DC-9, Flight 212, crashed 3 miles from the
Douglas Municipal Airport. Of the 82 persons aboard the aircraft, 11
and two crewmembers survived the accident. One passenger died 3 days
after the crash, and another died 6 days after the crash. One
survivor died of injuries 29 days after the accident.
(AP,
9/11/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines)
1975 Jun 4, The oldest animal
fossils to date in the US were discovered in North Carolina.
(www.todayinsci.com/6/6_04.htm)
1976 Jim Goodnight co-founded
software-maker SAS on the campus of the Univ. of North Carolina. By
2007 the company was a leader in business intelligence software and
the world’s largest privately owned software maker.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.84)
1979 Nov 3, Five radicals were
killed when gunfire erupted during an anti-Ku Klux Klan
demonstration in Greensboro, N.C., after a caravan of Klansmen and
Nazis had driven into the area. Named 'The Greensboro Massacre', the
five marchers were shot to death in broad daylight and another 8
were wounded.
(AP,
11/3/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_massacre)
1980-2008 In North Carolina the population of
Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte and its main suburbs,
grew from 400,000 people to 900,000.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.35)
1981 Feb 5, A military jury in
North Carolina convicted Marine Pvt. 1st Class Robert Garwood of
collaborating with the enemy while a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Garwood was dishonorably discharged.
(AP, 2/5/06)
1982 Mar 29, In New Orleans
Michael Jordan’s 16-foot jump shot with 15 seconds remaining gave
North Carolina a thrilling 63-62 victory over Georgetown and the
NCAA basketball championship before 61,612 at the Superdome tonight.
Six players in that game: Floyd, Ewing, Anthony Jones, Michael
Jordan, James Worty and Sam Perkins, became NBA first-round draft
choices.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_NCAA_Men's_Division_I_Basketball_Tournament)
1982 The Highlands-Cashiers
Chamber Music Festival began.
(WSJ, 6/29/99, p.A12)
1984 Mar, A storm system
spawned 22 twisters in the Carolinas that killed 57 people,
including 42 in North Carolina, and injured hundreds.
(AP, 4/17/11)
1984 Nov 2, Velma Barfield
(b.1932), convicted of the fatal poisoning of her boyfriend, was put
to death by injection in Raleigh, N.C. She was the first woman
executed in the United States since 1962.
(AP,
11/2/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velma_Barfield)
1985 Jan 21, 19F (-28C) was
recorded at Caesar's Head, South Carolina, a state record. 34F
(-37C) was recorded at Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina, a state record.
(http://tinyurl.com/yaleou)
1985 Apr 23, Sam J Ervin Jr.
(b.1896), Democratic Senator from North Carolina, died. He was the
leader of the Watergate Hearings that led to Pres. Nixon's
resignation.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Ervin)
1985 Sep 27, Hurricane Gloria,
having come ashore at North Carolina with winds of 130 mph,
proceeded to head up the Atlantic coast toward New England.
(AP, 9/27/97)
1986 Jul 14, In North Carolina
Harold Gentry’s gunshot-ridden body was found sprawled on the floor
of the home he shared with his wife, Betty Neumar. She collected at
least $20,000 in life insurance, plus other benefits from the
military and sold the couple's house and other items. In 2008 Neumar
(76) was charged with hiring a hit man to gun him down. After
arresting her, authorities realized that five times since the 1950s,
she was married, and each union ended with the death of her husband.
(AP, 6/13/08)
1986 Dec 15, Army cook Ronald
A. Gray raped and killed Army Pvt. Laura Lee Vickery-Clay of
Fayetteville. She was shot four times with a .22-caliber pistol that
Gray confessed to stealing. She suffered blunt force trauma over
much of her body. Gray (42) was convicted in connection with a spree
of four murders and eight rapes in the Fayetteville, NC, area
between April 1986 and January 1987 while he was stationed at Fort
Bragg. He was convicted at Fort Bragg in April 1988 and unanimously
sentenced to death.
(AP, 7/29/08)
1986 Terry Sanford (d.1998 at
80) was elected to the US Senate.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.C6)
1986 Blanche Taylor Moore (48)
murdered her boy friend in North Carolina. In 1990 she was convicted
and sentenced to death. In 2004 a new trial was denied.
(USAT, 2/5/04, p.6A)
1987 Mar 19, Televangelist Jim
Bakker resigned as chairman of his PTL ministry organization amid a
sex and money scandal involving Jessica Hahn, a former church
secretary from Oklahoma. Some $265,000 in ministry funds had been
used to keep Hahn quiet about a one-time sexual encounter in 1980.
(AP, 3/19/97)(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.B7)
1987 Oct 10, The Rev. Jesse
Jackson formally launched his bid for the Democratic presidential
nomination in Raleigh, N.C.
(AP, 10/10/97)
1988 Mar 31, The Charlotte
(N.C) Observer won the prize for public service for its coverage of
the Praise The Lord scandal.
(AP, 3/31/98)
1988 Dec 5, A federal grand
jury in North Carolina indicted PTL founder Jim Bakker and former
aide Richard Dortch on fraud and conspiracy charges. Bakker was
convicted of all counts; Dortch pleaded guilty to four counts and
cooperated with prosecutors in exchange for a lighter sentence.
(AP, 12/5/98)
1988 A memo from a Camp
Lejeune, NC, lawyer, Staff Judge Advocate A.P. Tokarz, to the base's
assistant facilities manager said the Marine Corps had known for
years that a fuel farm, built in 1941, was leaking 1,500 gallons a
month and had done nothing to stop it. "It's an indefensible waste
of money and a continuing potential threat to human health and the
environment.”
(AP, 2/18/10)
1989 Aug 28, Former
televangelist Jim Bakker's fraud and conspiracy trial opened in
Charlotte, N.C.; Bakker was convicted of all 24 counts the next
October and then served 4 ½ years of an 8 year sentence.
(AP, 8/28/99)(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.B7)
1989 Oct 5, A jury in
Charlotte, N.C., convicted former PTL evangelist Jim Bakker on all
24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. He used his television show to
defraud followers.
(AP, 10/5/99)
1989 Amelia Lewis was beaten to
death with a brick and left in an alley. Marcus Carter was convicted
for murder and attempted rape and sentenced to death. In 2000 Gov.
Jim Hunt commuted the death sentence to life in prison.
(SFC, 11/22/00, p.A7)
1991 Sep 3, Twenty-five people
were killed when fire broke out at the Imperial Food Products
chicken-processing plant in Hamlet, N.C.
(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/3/01)
1991 Oct-1993, From Oct. of
‘91-1993 Pfiesteria piscicida dinoflagellates were linked to major
fish kills that occurred in the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers (North
Carolina), which empty into the Albemarle-Pamlico Sound, the second
largest estuary on the US mainland. The microbe continued to plague
the Chesapeake Bay region into 1997.
(Nat. Hist. 3/96, p.18)(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A6)
1992 Dec 23, An American
mission to save lives in Somalia lost the first of its own when a
U.S. vehicle hit a land mine near Bardera, killing civilian Army
employee Lawrence N. Freedman of Fayetteville, N.C.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1992 Terry Sanford (d.1998 at
80) of North Carolina lost his bid for a 2nd term in the US Senate
to Lauch Faircloth, a former state Commerce Secretary.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.C6)
1992 Waste Reduction Partners
was founded in North Carolina to tap skilled retirees to assist on
environmental issues.
(SSFC, 10/31/04, Par p.16)
1993 Jul 23, In South Carolina
Larry Demery and Daniel Green came upon James Jordan sleeping in his
car and proceeded to rob him. As Jordan awoke Green shot Jordan, the
56-year-old father of basketball star Michael Jordan. Green was
found guilty of murder in April 1995, largely based on the testimony
of his life-long friend, Larry Demery, and was sentenced to life in
prison. Demery pleaded guilty in May 1995 and was sentenced to life
in prison. Both killers were sentenced at the Robeson County
Courthouse in Lumberton, North Carolina.
(SFC, 5/21/96,
p.A-3)(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n1_v88/ai_16951730)
1993 Aug 31, Hurricane Emily
hit North Carolina's Outer Banks, killing three people.
(AP, 8/31/98)
1993 Oct 26, National Football
League owners selected Carolina as the 29th NFL franchise.
(www.panthers.com/team/history.jsp)
1994 Apr 5, President Clinton
presided over a 90-minute town hall meeting in Charlotte, N.C., in
which he called himself the victim of "false charges" in connection
with the Whitewater controversy.
(AP, 4/5/99)
1994 Jul 2, A US Air DC-9
crashed in poor weather at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport
in North Carolina, killing 37 of the 57 people aboard.
(AP, 7/2/97)
1994 Nov 21, Sen. Jesse Helms,
R-N.C., remarked in a newspaper interview that President Clinton
"better have a bodyguard" if he were to visit North Carolina; Helms
later called his comment a mistake.
(AP, 11/21/99)
1994 Dec 13, An American Eagle
commuter plane carrying 20 people crashed short of Raleigh-Durham
International Airport in North Carolina, killing 15.
(AP, 12/13/98)
1994 The Carolina Panthers and
Jacksonville Jaguars, expansion football teams, began playing. They
benefited from a newly established salary cap.
(WSJ, 1/10/97,
p.A1)(www.panthers.com/team/history.jsp)
1994 The gas chamber was last
used in the US in North Carolina.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A2)
1994 Quintiles, a medical
contract research organization, went public. It was founded by Prof.
Dennis Gillings of the Univ. of North Carolina.
(WSJ, 4/11/03, p.A2)
1994 A collision between a jet
fighter and a troop transport killed 24 soldiers at Pope Air Force
Base, NC.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A3)
1995 Jul 1, Rock-and-roll disc
jockey Wolfman Jack died in Belvidere, North Carolina, at age 57.
(AP, 7/1/00)
1995 Sep 27-Oct 6, Hurricane
Opal caused at least 50 deaths in Guatemala and Mexico and 20 deaths
in the United States. The storm hit Central America before striking
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1995 Oct 27, William Kreutzer,
US Army sergeant, opened fire on a field of 1300 soldiers at Fort
Bragg, NC. He killed a fellow 82nd Airborne soldier, Major Stephen
Badger and wounded several others. Defense lawyers in 1996 pleaded
that he suffered from depression. He was convicted of pre-meditated
murder on 6/11/96. The next day he was sentenced to death. His death
sentence was later overturned. In 2009 Kreutzer pleaded guilty under
a deal that could get him life in prison at most.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A2)(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A2)(SFC,
6/13/96, p.A2)(AP, 10/27/05)(SFC, 3/12/09, p.A6)
1995-1998 John Edwards made nearly $27 million as
a personal injury lawyer.
(SFC, 7/10/04, p.A4)
1996 Jul 12, Hurricane
Bertha hit North Carolina's Cape Fear near Wilmington, then moved on
to batter a string of coastal towns.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/12/97)
1996 Sep 5, Hurricane Fran hit
at Cape Fear, North Carolina. It tore through the Carolinas with
winds at 115-mph.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A3)(AP, 9/5/97)
1996 In western North Carolina
the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation acquired a few hundred acres
of ancestral pasture bordering the Tuckasegee River that contained
the Kituwha Mound. Legend held that this was the site where God had
given the Cherokee their laws and their first fire.
(Arch, 9/02, p.70)
1997 Feb 27, A jury in
Fayetteville, N.C., convicted former Army paratrooper James N.
Burmeister of murdering a black couple so he could get a skinhead
tattoo. He was later sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 2/27/98)
1997 Jun 23, Kristen Modafferi
(18) was last seen in SF. She had just moved to the Bay Area from
Charlotte, N.C., lived in Oakland and worked in SF.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.D1,3)
1997 Jul 8, A US Army Black
Hawk helicopter crashed at Fort Bragg, NC, and killed 8 soldiers.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A3)
1997 Jul 25, US immigration
agents rounded up 17 deaf Mexicans in Sanford, North Carolina. This
followed the revelation of 50 deaf Mexicans held in servitude in NYC
and forced to sell trinkets on the streets.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A5)
1997 Sep 23, Kevin (18) and
Tilmon Golphin (19) of Virginia shot and killed Patrol Troopers Ed
Lowry and David Hathcock on I-95 in North Carolina after they were
pulled over in a stolen car. The 2 brothers were sentenced to death
May 13, 1998.
(SFC, 5/14/98, p.A6)
1997 Oct 5, David Scott Ghantt
(27) disappeared with $15-17 million in a Loomis, Fargo & Co.
van in Charlotte, N.C. 21 people were later charged in the heist and
purchased over 1000 items with the money. In 1999 an auction was
held to dispose of the property with the proceeds going to insurer
Lloyds of London.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A7)(SFEC, 2/21/99, p.A2)
1997 Oct 5, In North Carolina
an attack on five Mexicans and a Guatemalan that left five dead. In
2003 suspects Alonso Cruz Osorio and Jose Luis Cruz Osorio were
arrested in the town of Acolman, Mexico.
(AP, 10/23/03)
1997 Oct 6, In Magnum, N.C., 5
migrant workers were shot to death by their housemates Jose Luis
Cruz Osorio (28) and his brother Alonso Cruz Osorio (18). A 6th man
was also shot but escaped and identified the attackers.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A7)
1998 Mar 20, A twister killed
11 people in northeast Georgia and 2 people in North Carolina.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 13, Bank of America
announced a plan to merge with NationsBank Corp. of Charlotte, N.C.
The new entity will be called BankAmerica Corp. with headquarters in
Charlotte.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A1)(SFC, 4/14/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 18, Former North
Carolina governor and U.S. Sen. Terry Sanford died in Durham at age
80.
(AP, 4/18/99)
1998 Jun 18, In North Carolina
an Amtrak train crashed into a tractor-trailer and killed the
driver. Ten others were injured.
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.A3)
1998 Jul 30, “Buffalo Bob”
Smith, host of the Howdy Doody Show from 1947-1960, died at age 80
in Flat Rock, N.C.
(SFC, 7/31/98, p.D7)
1998 Aug 2, James Andrew Finley
(21) killed two campers at the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area in
Burke Ct. He was caught 3 days later.
(SFC, 8/6/93, p.A11)
1998 Aug 25, Hurricane Bonnie
hit North Carolina with winds up to 115 mph.
(SFC, 8/26/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 8, In Fayetteville,
North Carolina 2 women’s clinics that performed abortions were
attacked with firebombs.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A2)
1998 Nov, John Edwards (45) was
elected US Senator for North Carolina.
(SFC, 9/17/03, p.A6)
1999 Mar 9, The all-white town
council of Trenton agreed to annex 3 black neighborhoods.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 1, In Kittrell, N.C.,
William Harvey Bawcum Jr., (46), was shot to death from a .38
caliber pistol by his 11-year-old twins, who also wounded their
mother and sister in a squabble over a hunting rifle. A trial was
avoided after the boys admitted to the shooting. The brothers were
sentenced to 6 years in a state reformatory.
(SFC, 4/7/99, p.A5)(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A3)(SFC,
11/24/99, p.A13)
1999 Jun 26, In North Carolina
the Int'l. Special Olympics opened in Cary.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A2)
1999 Aug 30, Hurricane Dennis
hit the state. The storm then went out to sea and backtracked to hit
a 2nd time and lasted to Sep 5.
(SFC, 9/6/99, p.A5)
1999 Sep 7-19, Hurricane Floyd
caused one death in Caribbean and 56 in United States. Storm hit
Bahamas before striking Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Virginia, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1999 Sep 15, Hurricane Floyd
hit North Carolina and dropped 13-16 inches of rain.
(SFC, 9/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 17, The Tar River
engulfed the town of Princeville and water reached 20 feet deep.
(SFC, 10/1/99, p.D2)
1999 Sep 30, Residents of
Princeville began returning to their flooded homes. Residents in
November voted to rebuild the town rather seek a federal buyout.
(SFC, 10/1/99, p.D2)
1999 Oct 4, It was reported
that Edmund T. Pratt, an ex-Pfizer executive, planned to donate $35
million to endow the Duke Univ. School of Engineering.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A3)
2000 Jan 12, Charlotte Hornets
guard Bobby Phills was killed in a crash during a drag race.
(AP, 1/12/05)
2000 Jan 25, A snow storm hit
the East Coast and left Raleigh, NC, with over a foot of snow.
(SFC, 1/26/00, p.A3)
2000 May 20, In North Carolina
a bridge collapsed at the Winston NASCAR stock car race in Concord.
107 people were treated and 53 were hospitalized.
(SFC, 5/22/00, p.A2)
2000 Dec 11, A US Marine Osprey
aircraft crashed in North Carolina and all 4 people aboard were
killed. The fleet was grounded the next day.
(SFC, 12/13/00, p.A3)
2000 Jeffrey Manchester (28)
was sent to prison in North Carolina to serve a 45-year
sentence for at least 40 robberies at MacDonald’s and other
businesses in the Bay Area and across the country. In 2004 he became
the 1st person to escape from Brown creek Correctional Institution
in Polkton, NC. In 2005 he was caught after hiding out in a Toys “R”
Us Store.
(SFC, 1/11/05, p.A1)
2001 Jul 10, In North Carolina
3 Marines were killed in a helicopter crash near Camp Lejeune.
(SFC, 7/11/01, p.A5)
2001 Aug 4, Gov. Mike Easley
signed legislation that banned the execution of the mentally
retarded, define by an IQ recorded at 70 or lower before age 18.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.A10)
2001 Aug 22, Sen. Jesse Helms
(79) of North Carolina confirmed that he would not seek re-election
next year.
(SFC, 8/23/01, p.A6)
2001 Sep 3, A man died from a
shark attack off the Outer Banks.
(SFC, 9/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 6, Joseph Allen Stein
(b.1912), architect, died in North Carolina. Much of his work was
done in India where he designed the India International Center in
Delhi.
(www.virginia.edu/soasia/newsletter/Fall01/stein.html)(SFC, 4/7/07,
p.F6)
2001 Nov 6, Marshall Pitts Jr.
(37) was elected as the 1st African American mayor of Fayetteville.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.D4)
2001 Federal agents in Virginia
and North Carolina conducted Operation Lightning Strike to curtail
moonshine production in the region.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A12)
2001 Mental Floss magazine was
launched by Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur at North Carolina’s
Duke Univ.
(SSFC, 12/12/04, p.D2)
2002 Feb 23, A Fort Bragg
soldier was mistakenly killed by a sheriff’s deputy near Robbins
during a role-playing exercise.
(SFC, 2/25/02, p.A3)
2002 May 3, In Bakersville,
North Carolina, 8 inmates died inside the Mitchell County jail after
a fire broke out.
{North Carolina}
(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.A8)(AP, 5/3/03)
2002 May 10, NBA owners
approved the Hornets' move to New Orleans, ending the team's 14-year
era in Charlotte, NC.
(AP, 5/10/03)
2002 Jul 3, It was reported
that Operation Xtermination, a drug investigation at Camp Lejeune,
NC, seized over $1.4 million in drugs and convicted over 80 marines
and sailors.
(SFC, 7/3/02, p.A5)
2002 Dec 5, A severe ice and
snow storm snarled the eastern US down into the Carolinas, where
over a million customers lost power. 29 deaths were blamed on the
storm and its aftermath.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.A3)(SSFC, 12/8/02, p.A14)
2002 Dec 18, Robert Johnson,
the billionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television, became
the 1st African American to own a major sports team. The NBA awarded
him rights to the expansion franchise in Charlotte.
(SFC, 12/19/02, p.A2)
2002 Elizabeth Gilbert
authored: “The Last American Man,” a quasi-biography of Eustace
Conway, developer and keeper of Turtle Island, a primitive farming
community in the northern part of the state.
(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.M6)
2003 Jan 2, Sen. John Edwards
of North Carolina announced that he would seek the Democratic
nomination for president.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)
2003 Jan 8, In Charlotte, NC, a
US Airways Express Beech 1900 turboprop crashed on takeoff and all
21 aboard were killed.
(SFC, 1/9/03, p.A3)
2003 Jan 29, In Kinston, NC, 6
people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion at West
Pharmaceuticals.
(SFC, 1/30/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/31/03, p.A1)(AP,
1/29/04)
2003 Feb 20, A 17-year-old
Mexican girl mistakenly given a heart and lungs with the wrong blood
type received a second set of organs at Duke University Medical
Center in North Carolina; however, Jesica Santillan suffered brain
damage and later died.
(AP, 2/20/04)
2003 Mar 14, Amanda Davis (32),
writing professor at Mills College in Oakland, Ca., was killed in a
small plane crash near Ashville, NC, along with her parents. She was
on a book signing tour for her novel “Wonder When You’ll Miss Me.”
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.D4)
2003 May 31, Eric Rudolph, the
longtime fugitive charged in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing and in
attacks at an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub, was arrested in
the mountains of North Carolina.
(AP, 5/31/03)
2003 Jul 30, Textile
manufacturer Pillowtex filed for bankruptcy saying it will close 16
plants and sell its assets. 4,300 people in the Kannopolis, NC, area
lost their jobs.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R10)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.30)
2003 Sep 16, North Carolina (D)
Sen. John Edwards (50) entered the US presidential race.
(SFC, 9/17/03, p.A6)
2003 Sep 18, Hurricane Isabel
plowed into North Carolina's Outer Banks with 100 mile-an-hour winds
and pushed its way up the Eastern Seaboard; the storm was later
blamed for 30 deaths.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2003 Oct 13, It was reported
that scientists in North Carolina had built a brain implant that
lets monkeys control a robotic arm with their thoughts.
(SFC, 10/13/03, p.A1)
2004 Jan 19, In the Iowa caucus
John Kerry led the Democrats with 38%, John Edwards was 2nd with
32%, Howard Dean was 3rd with 18% and Dick Gephardt 4th with 11%.
Entrance polls showed that economic issues held top priority.
(SFC, 1/20/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/21/04, p.A1)
2004 May, In High Point, North
Carolina, police presented nine suspected drug dealers with
community members, who confronted them on the harm they were causing
as well as incriminating evidence of their activities. The suspects
were offered a chance to stop dealing, which most accepted. Over 2
years later crime was down 25% in the area. The program was the
brain-child of Prof. David Kennedy of New York’s John Jay College of
Criminal Justice.
(WSJ, 9/27/06, p.A1)
2004 Jul 6, US Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry selected former rival John Edwards
to be his running mate.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Sep 17, The violent
remains of Hurricane Ivan pounded a large swath of the eastern
United States, drenching an area from Georgia to Ohio. Ivan left 70
dead in the Caribbean and 40 dead in the US including 4 in Alabama,
16 in Florida, 4 in Georgia, 4 in Louisiana, 3 in Mississippi, and 8
in North Carolina.
(AP, 9/17/04)(SFC, 9/18/04, p.A16)
2004 Nov 2, Mike Easley (D) was
elected governor of North Carolina. Pres. Bush carried the state
with 56.3% of the vote. Voting problems plagued the state and
impacted local races. A machine in Carteret County lost 4,438 votes.
(SFC, 11/4/04, p.A18)(SFC, 11/13/04, p.A6)
2004 Nov 3, Jeremy Jaynes of
North Carolina became the first person in the US to be convicted of
a felony for sending unsolicited bulk email. He was charged in
Virginia because his emails went through an AOL server there. In
2008 the Virginia Supreme Court declared the state’s antispam law
unconstitutional and reversed Jaynes’ conviction.
(WSJ, 9/13/08,
p.A2)(www.phonebusters.com/english/legal_2004_nov3.html)
2004 Dec 26, Reggie White (43),
NFL defensive star, died in Huntersville, NC. White played 15
seasons with Philadelphia, Green Bay and Carolina. He retired after
the 2000 season as the NFL's career sacks leader with 198. The mark
has since been passed by Bruce Smith.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 The CIA hired Blackwater
USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top
operatives of Al-Qaida. Blackwater of North Carolina, later renamed
Xe Services, helped with planning, training and surveillance until
the unsuccessful program was cancelled.
(SFC, 8/20/09, p.A2)
2005 Apr 4, The North Carolina
Tarheels won the NCAA men’s basketball championship over Illinois,
75-70.
(WSJ, 4/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 11, Chelsea Cooley,
the reigning Miss North Carolina, was crowned Miss USA in the 54th
annual pageant.
(AP, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 21, Army Sgt. Hasan
Akbar was convicted by a military jury at Fort Bragg, N.C., of
premeditated murder and attempted murder in an attack that killed
two of his comrades and wounded 14 others in Kuwait.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2005 May 27, In North Carolina
Junior Allen (65) walked out of prison after 35 years in prison for
stealing a black-and-white television set.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 Apr 28, A military jury at
Fort Bragg, N.C., sentenced Sgt. Hasan Akbar to death for the 2003
murders of two officers in Kuwait.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2005 Sep 15, Hurricane Ophelia
weakened slightly as it crawled along the North Carolina coast.
Early indications were that the storm had not caused the severe
flooding many feared.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Nov 17, Robert Stein of
North Carolina, arrested on Nov 14, was charged with accepting
kickbacks and bribes during his tenure as a controller and financial
officer of the US occupation authority in Iraq. He steered
construction contracts to Philip Bloom, who was charged with a range
of crimes on Nov 16.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.A15)
2005 Dec 2, In North Carolina
Kenneth Lee Boyd, a double murderer who said he didn't want to be
known as a number, became the 1,000th person executed in the United
States since capital punishment resumed 28 years ago.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2006 Feb 24, In North Carolina
more than a thousand flounder, spot and pin fish beached themselves
at the Marine Corps' New River air base, and then swam away. State
and local wildlife experts believed it was related to a popular
phenomenon known in coastal Alabama as "jubilee." Scientists know
that a jubilee occurs when variety of factors deoxygenate the water,
forcing fish to the shore.
(AP, 2/26/06)
2006 Mar 13, The 47 lacrosse
players at Duke Univ., North Carolina, paid a couple of strippers to
entertain them. Events this night led to the arrest of 2 players on
April 18.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.46)
2006 Mar 23, Police took DNA
samples from 46 members of the Duke University lacrosse team after a
woman hired to dance for a party charged she'd been raped.
(AP, 3/23/07)(SFC, 4/12/07, p.A2)
2006 Apr 5, Mike Pressler, the
lacrosse coach of Duke Univ., resigned amid allegations that 3
players had raped a stripper at an off-campus party in March. Duke
cancelled the lacrosse season. The rape charges were later dropped,
but the players still faced allegations of sexual offense and
kidnapping; all maintained their innocence.
(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A2)(AP, 4/5/07)
2006 Apr 18, Two Duke
University lacrosse players were arrested on charges of raping and
kidnapping a stripper hired to dance at an off-campus party on March
13. The DA said he hoped to charge a third person soon. A Dec
pre-trial hearing disclosed that no DNA material from the players
had been found in the stripper and that this information had been
withheld in an initial report. DNA evidence from several other men
was found. In late December rape counts were dropped when the
alleged victim changed her story. On April 11, 2007, all charges
were dropped. Stuart Taylor and K.C. Johnson soon authored “Until
Proven Innocent” (2007), their evaluation of the incident and
following trial.
(AP, 4/18/06)(WSJ, 12/23/06, p.A1)(SSFC,
12/24/06, p.A18)(Econ, 9/15/07, p.46)
2006 Jun 17, The Edmonton
Oilers shut out the Carolina Hurricanes 4-0 to take the Stanley Cup
finals to a seventh and deciding game.
(Reuters, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 19, In Raleigh, NC,
the Carolina Hurricanes blunted an historic comeback bid by the
Edmonton Oilers with a 3-1 Game Seven win to lift their first
Stanley Cup.
(Reuters, 6/20/06)
2006 Jul 3, Former Private
Steven D. Green was charged in federal court in Charlotte, N.C.,
with raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl (Abeer Qassim al-Janabi) and
killing her (March 11), her parents and sister. Four members of
Green's unit were charged as well; one later pleaded guilty and was
sentenced to 100 years in prison.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2006 Sep, Rielle Hunter, a film
producer and mistress of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, created a
video sex tape with Edwards. In 2008 she had a child, fathered by
Edwards, who only admitted paternity in 2010. Andrew Young, a former
Edward’s loyalist, later viewed the tape and in 2010 authored a book
that chronicled the affair.
(SFC, 1/30/10, p.A6)
2006 Oct 5, In Apex, North
Carolina, a fire began at the EQ Industrial Services hazardous waste
plant and a chlorine cloud rose high over the area. The next morning
as many as 17,000 people were urged to flee homes on the outskirts
of Raleigh.
(AP, 10/6/06)
2006 Oct 17, Pres. Bush signed
into law a bill to provide grant money for the Gullah/Geechee
Cultural Heritage Corridor. In September Congress had declared a
swathe of coastline from North Carolina to Florida the
Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, in an effort to preserve
the region’s distinctive black culture and creole language.
(Econ, 2/2/08,
p.42)(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6283153)
2006 Nov 16, In North Carolina
a tornado struck Riegelwood, a tiny riverside community, killing 8
people as thunderstorms continued a path of destruction across the
South. Another person died earlier in Louisiana, and a car crash
death near Charlotte was also blamed on the storms.
(AP, 11/16/06)(SFC, 11/17/06, p.A4)
2006 Dec 22, Rape charges were
dropped against three Duke University lacrosse players, but
kidnapping and sexual offense charges remained. Those charges were
later dropped as well.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2006 In North Carolina Anthony
Atala and colleagues at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative
Medicine made new bladders for 7 patients. Patient tissue cells were
used to grow the bladders on scaffolds. As of 2010 the bladders were
still working.
(Econ, 2/20/10, p.77)
2007 Jan 12, Durham County,
N.C., District Attorney Mike Nifong asked to be removed from the
Duke lacrosse rape investigation. State prosecutors later exonerated
three suspects.
(AP, 1/12/08)
2007 Jan 13, The North Carolina
state attorney general's office agreed to take over the sexual
assault case against three Duke University lacrosse players at the
request of embattled Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong.
All three players were later exonerated.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2007 Jan 19, North Carolina’s
Gov. Mike Easley said Google will invest up to $600 million to build
a data center in his state.
(SFC, 1/20/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 26, It was reported
that Dr. Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular
scientist, has come up with a way to add caffeine to baked goods,
without the bitter taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the
equivalent of about two cups of coffee.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Feb 15, Jim Black (72), US
House speaker from North Carolina, pleaded guilty to illegally
taking thousands of dollars from chiropractors while pushing their
legislative agenda. Black was sentenced to 5 years in prison for
political corruption.
(SFC, 7/31/07,
p.A3)(http://preview.tinyurl.com/369jo9)
2007 Feb 16, An annual survey
released Forbes.com said Raleigh, North Carolina, topped the list of
the best US cities for getting a job.
(Reuters, 2/16/07)
2007 Mar 20, Rescuers found
Michael Auberry, a 12-year-old Boy Scout, who was dehydrated and
disoriented after four days in the wooded mountains of North
Carolina.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2007 Mar 22, North Carolina
Sen. John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth made a joint announcement
that he will continue his bid for the White House despite the
recurrence of her breast cancer.
(SFC, 3/23/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 1, In Charlotte, North
Carolina, 2 police officers shot during a struggle with a suspect
outside an apartment complex died, and a suspect was charged with
murder.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 11, North Carolina's
top prosecutor dropped all charges against three former Duke
University lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a
stripper at a party, saying the athletes were innocent victims of a
"tragic rush to accuse."
(AP, 4/11/08)
2007 May 31, Former Presidents
Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush attended the
dedication of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2007 Jun 12, The CDC said up to
75,000 US Marine family members may have drunk water at Camp Lejeune
tainted by dry-cleaning fluid over a 30-year period.
(WSJ, 6/13/07,
p.A1)(www.atsdr.cdc.gov/sites/lejeune/)
2007 Jun 15, During his ethics
trial, a tearful Mike Nifong announced he would resign as district
attorney of Durham County, NC, after admitting that he'd made
improper statements about three Duke University lacrosse players who
were once charged with raping a stripper. The players were later
declared innocent by state prosecutors.
(AP, 6/15/08)
2007 Jun 16, A North Carolina
State Bar disciplinary committee said disgraced prosecutor Mike
Nifong would be disbarred for his disastrous prosecution of three
Duke University lacrosse players falsely accused of rape.
(SSFC, 6/17/07, p.A4)(AP, 6/16/08)
2007 Aug 8, Researchers from
the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill reported that coral
coverage in the Indo-Pacific, an area stretching from Indonesia's
Sumatra island to French Polynesia, had dropped 20 percent in the
past two decades. They said the decline was driven by climate
change, disease and coastal development.
(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 28, In North Carolina
Dwayne Allen Dail (39), a man who remained in prison for 18 years
after being wrongly convicted of a 1987 child rape, was released
after new DNA testing cleared him of the crime. In October of 2007
he received a pardon from Gov. Mike Easley based on his innocence.
Dail also received some compensation from the state; he was eligible
for $20,000 per year of incarceration.
(AP,
8/28/07)(www.innocenceproject.org/Content/832.php)
2007 Aug 31, Mike Nifong,
the disgraced former district attorney of Durham County, N.C., was
sentenced to a day in jail after being held in criminal contempt of
court for lying to a judge when pursuing rape charges against three
falsely accused Duke University lacrosse players.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2007 Sep 1, The Mountaineers of
Boone, North Carolina, pulled off one of the greatest upsets in
college football history as Appalachian State beat No. 5
Michigan 34-32.
(AP, 9/2/07)
2007 Sep 1, It was reported
that it is now more expensive to execute someone in the US that to
jail him for life. In North Carolina each capital case was said to
cost some $2 million to legal fees.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.21)
2007 Oct 15, In North Carolina
Gov. Mike Easley asked residents to stop washing cars and watering
lawns as the Southeast US experienced a severe drought.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 28, A beach house
erupted into a storm of fire and smoke in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C. Six
of the seven students killed attended the University of South
Carolina.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Nov 30, Scientists at Duke
Univ. reported the creation of the first map of genes that are
inherited as “silenced genes.” The Duke map verified 40 and
identified another 156. Humans were first shown to have silenced
genes in 1991. They help explain why some people get sick and others
do not.
(SFC, 11/30/07, p.A7)
2007 Nov, a new light rail
system began operating in Charlotte, North Carolina.
(Econ, 11/29/08, p.35)
2007 Dec 19, Lance Cpl. Maria
Frances Lauterbach (20) disappeared, just days after meeting with
military prosecutors to talk about her allegation that Marine Cpl.
Cesar Armando Laurean (21) raped her. Her cell phone was found Dec.
20 near the main gate at Camp Lejeune, NC. On Jan 11 her burned
remains were found in the backyard of Laurean’s home as a nationwide
search for Laurean continued. In 2010 a jury found Laurean guilty of
first degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison.
(AP, 1/12/08)(SFC, 1/12/08, p.A4)(SFC, 8/24/10,
p.A4)
2008 Jan 30, Democrat John
Edwards exited the presidential race, ending a scrappy underdog bid
in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while
grappling with family hardship that roused voters' sympathies.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Mar 5, In North Carolina
Eve Carson (22), Univ. of North Carolina student body president, was
found dead on a street not far from the Chapel Hill campus. She had
been shot several times, including once in the right temple. On
March 12 Lawrence Alvin Lovette Jr. (17) and Demario James
Atwater (21) were charged with first-degree murder in the death of
Carson. A day later Lovette was also charged with first-degree
murder in the death of Abhijit Mahato, a doctoral student in
computational mechanics, who was found shot to death inside his
apartment a few blocks south of Duke's campus in January. In 2010
Atwater pleaded guilty to several federal crimes and agreed to a
life sentence.
(AP, 3/8/08)(AP, 3/13/08)(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A6)
2008 Mar 20, North Carolina
lawmakers voted 109-5 to boot Rep. Thomas Wright, a Wilmington
Democrat, from office for mishandling $340,000 in loans and
contributions.
(SFC, 3/21/08, p.A4)
2008 Apr 7, In North Carolina
Thomas Wright, a former state lawmaker, was convicted of mishandling
charitable contributions and fraudulently obtaining a loan. He was
sentenced to 6-8 years in prison.
(WSJ, 4/8/08, p.A2)
2008 Apr 10, In Mexico police,
working with FBI agents in the small town of Tacambaro, arrested
Cpl. Cesar Laurean (21). He is charged with first-degree murder in
the December, 2007, death at Camp Lejeune, NC, of Marine Lance Cpl.
Maria Lauterbach, who had accused him of rape.
(AP, 4/11/08)
2008 May 6, Sen. Barack Obama
climbed within 200 delegates of clinching the Democratic
presidential nomination. In the Indiana primary Clinton won 51% to
49%. In North Carolina Obama won 56% to 42%.
(AP, 5/7/08)(SFC, 5/7/08, p.A1)
2008 May 14, Sen. Obama won the
support of John Edwards, former North Carolina Senator and
presidential candidate.
(WSJ, 5/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Jun 20, Wilbur Hardee
(b.1917), founder of the Hardee’s restaurant chain (1960), died in
Greenville, NC.
(SFC, 6/24/08, p.B5)
2008 Jun 24, In North Carolina
a federal grand jury indicted 26 suspected members of the MS-13
int’l. gang on charges that included racketeering and drug
trafficking.
(SFC, 6/25/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 4, Jesse Helms
(b.1921), former 5-term US Senator from North Carolina, died in
Raleigh, NC. Helms had switched to the Republican Party in 1970 and
was elected to the Senate in 1972, the first Republican from North
Carolina in the 20th century. The conservative senator earned the
title “Senator No” as a leading crusader against communism,
liberalism, tax increases, abortion, homosexuality, affirmative
action and court-ordered busing to desegregate schools.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 22, North
Carolina-based Wachovia Corp., the 4th largest US bank, lost $8.86
billion in the 2nd quarter, and said it was slashing its dividend
and cutting 6,350 jobs after losses tied to mortgages soared.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Aug 8, John Edwards,
former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate,
admitted that he had an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter in
2006, but denied fathering a daughter with her.
(AP, 8/9/08)(Econ, 8/16/08,
p.34)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rielle_Hunter)
2008 Aug, The population of
North Carolina stood at nearly 9 million people, up from 8 million
in 2000.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.31)
2008 Sep 6, Tropical Storm
Hanna blew hard and dumped rain in eastern North Carolina and
Virginia, but caused little damage beyond isolated flooding and
power outages as it quickly headed north toward New England.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 19, Former Blink-182
drummer Travis Barker and celebrity DJ AM were critically injured in
a fiery Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four people just
before midnight.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 29, Citigroup bought
the operations of Charlotte-based Wachovia Corp. for $2.2 billion in
stock and assumed $42 billion in losses on the bank’s risky $312
billion loan portfolio, in exchange for the FDIC backstopping losses
beyond that. Citigroup agreed to give the FDIC $12 billion in
preferred stock. Wachovia shares fell 8.20 to close at $1.80.
Wachovia’s new 48-story headquarters in Charlotte, NC, was still
under construction.
(AFP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/30/08, p.D1)(WSJ, 9/30/08,
p.C6)
2008 Nov 4, In North Carolina
Democrat Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue was elected governor. Democrat Kay
Hagan defeated Republican state Sen. Elizabeth Dole.
(SFC, 11/5/08, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Nov 15, In North Carolina
tornadoes killed 2 people.
(SSFC, 11/16/08, p.A2)
2009 Jan 15, Swiss
pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG said it has secured a $486 million
contract to build a new flu vaccine plant in North Carolina.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Feb 25, A Federal Grand
Jury returned a single count indictment charging Kody Ray
Brittingham (20) of Camp Lejeune, NC, with threatening the
President-Elect of the United States, in violation of Title 18,
United States Code, Section 871, which has a maximum penalty of 5
years imprisonment followed by up to three years of supervised
release and a fine of up to $250,000. In August Brittingham pleaded
guilty to charges of threatening to kill Pres. Obama and armed
robbery. Brittingham was arrested in mid-December on an unrelated
armed robbery charge and, as a result, separated from the service on
Jan 3. But a search of his barracks also turned up a journal
containing white supremacist material and a plan to kill Obama.
(www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/03/marine_obamathreats_032109w/)(SSFC,
12/6/09, p.A18)
2009 Mar 9, In North Carolina
Philip Guyett (42) pleaded guilty to falsifying records so that he
could sell human tissue from corpses that were riddled with cancer
or showed intravenous drug use. He was sentenced in October to 8
years in prison.
(Econ, 10/24/09,
p.38)(http://tinyurl.com/yfnbh8p)
2009 Mar 17, In Utah Chiew Chan
Saevang (37), a suspected opium trafficker, killed himself and his
girlfriend, Yer Yang (40), after sheriff’s deputies chased them down
on a state highway. Saevang was also wanted in the March 12 slaying
of four Conover, NC, family members.
(SFC, 3/19/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 29, In North Carolina
Robert Stewart (45) went on a terrifying rampage in the Pinelake
Health and Rehab center, killing seven residents and a nurse and
wounding three other people. He was stopped by a single shot to the
chest fired by Justin Garner, a decorated police officer responding
to a 911 call. Stewart survived and was charged with 8 counts of 1st
degree murder.
(AP, 3/30/09)(SFC, 3/31/09, p.A7)
2009 May 13, In North Carolina,
the country’s top tobacco growing state by sales, legislators
approved a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)
2009 Jun 8, North Carolina
State Univ. terminated former first lady Mary Easley’s
$170,000-a-year job after e-mails showed that former Gov. Mike
Easley had served as an intermediary when the school hire her.
(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 9, In Garner, North
Carolina, an unexplained explosion at a ConAgra Slim Jim factory
left at least 2 people dead.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jul 4, In North Carolina 2
workers were killed when a truckload of fireworks exploded on a dock
at the southern end of Ocracoke Island. 2 others soon died from
their injuries.
(AP, 7/5/09)(SFC, 7/6/09, p.A10)
2009 Jul 6, In North Carolina
suspected killer Patrick Burris (41), a career criminal paroled just
two months ago, was shot to death by officers investigating a
burglary complaint at a home in Gastonia, 30 miles from Gaffney, SC,
where the killing spree started June 27.
(AP, 7/7/09)
2009 Jul 8, In Chesnee, North
Carolina, Ricky Lee Blackwell shot a girl (8) twice in the driveway
of a home where he had taken her and his estranged wife to swim and
play. The girl's father was dating Blackwell's estranged wife.
Blackwell shot himself as police closed in. He was taken to a
hospital but his condition wasn't released.
(AP, 7/9/09)
2009 Jul 27, In North Carolina
Daniel Patrick Boyd (39) was arrested with his two sons and four
other North Carolina men. Prosecutors accused them of military-style
training at home and plotting "violent jihad" through a series of
terror attacks abroad. In 1991 Boyd and his brother were convicted
of bank robbery in Pakistan. They were also accused of carrying
identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla
group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. Each was sentenced to have
a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the decision was
later overturned. In 2011 Zakarija Boyd (22) pleaded guilty to one
charge of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.
(AP, 7/28/09)(SFC, 6/8/11, p.A8)
2009 Aug 14, It was reported
that in North Carolina nine women, who lived at the edges of the
poor community in Rocky Mount, have disappeared since 2005. Six
bodies have been found along rural roads just a few miles outside
town, most so decomposed that investigators could not tell how they
died. At least one of the women was strangled. All the deaths have
been classified as homicides. Three women were still missing.
(AP, 8/14/09)
2009 Oct 13, It was reported
that the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on
millions of motorists comparing driver’s license photos with
pictures of convicts. The project in North Carolina had already
helped nab at least one suspect.
(SFC, 10/13/09, p.A6)
2009 Nov 12, The Atlantic
seaboard was drenched in rain from Tropical Storm Ida. 3 deaths were
reported in Virginia and one in North Carolina.
(SFC, 11/13/09, p.A8)
2009 Nov 14, In North Carolina
the Fayetteville Police Department said Antoinette Nicole Davis, the
mother of Shaniya Davis (5), faced a child abuse charge involving
prostitution as well as filing a false police report. The child
hadn't been seen since Nov 10, when surveillance footage showed
Mario Andrette McNeill carrying Shaniya into a hotel room. He was
arrested and charged with kidnapping on Nov 13. The body of Shaniya
Davis was found on Nov 16 in woods 30 miles from Fayetteville. She
had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated on Nov 10, the day her
mother reported her missing.
(AP, 11/15/09)(SFC, 11/17/09, p.A26)(SFC,
11/21/09, p.A4)
2009 Dec 17, Cincinnati Bengals
receiver Chris Henry (26) died in North Carolina, a day after
falling out of the back of a pickup truck during what police said
was a domestic dispute with his fiancee.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 In North Carolina Terry
Ledford (53) found a roughly 2-inch-square emerald rimmed with spots
of iron on a 200-acre farm owned by business partner Renn Adams (90)
and his siblings. The rural community of Hiddenite is named for a
paler stone that resembles emerald. After the gem was cut and
re-cut, the finished product was about one-fifth the weight of the
original find. Finders marketed the nearly 65-carat emerald under
the name Carolina Emperor.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Jan 2, In North Carolina,
the nation's leading tobacco producer, a ban on smoking in
restaurants and bars went into effect. This made it least the 29th
state to ban smoking in restaurants and 24th for bars.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2010 Jan 12, Officials shut
down a North Carolina port and urged people to leave the area after
nine containers with highly explosive materials were accidentally
punctured by a fork lift operator. The chemical involved is
pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETV), a powerful explosive.
(AP, 1/12/10)(SFC, 1/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Jan 21, In North Carolina
John Edwards, former Democratic presidential candidate, admitted
that he fathered a child during an affair before his 2nd White House
bid, dropping long-standing denials just ahead of a book by a former
campaign aide.
(SFC, 1/23/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 16, US federal
prosecutors in North Carolina charged Gary Jackson, the former
president of Blackwater Worldwide, and 4 other senior company
officials with weapons violations and making false statements. A 15
count indictment charged that they tried to hide purchases of
weapons and trying to hide gifts of expensive weapons to Jordanian
officials as the company tried to win contracts.
(SFC, 4/17/10, p.A5)
2010 May 28, Jonathan Trappe
(36) of Raleigh, North Carolina, crossed the English Channel carried
by a bundle of helium balloons, ending a quiet and serene flight by
touching down in a French cabbage patch.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 Jun 17, In Kosovo Bajram
Asllani (29) of Mitrovica was arrested and accused of being part of
a terrorism plot that originated in North Carolina among people who
planned attacks both at a US military installation and abroad.
(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Aug 18, The North Carolina
justice system shook as an audit commissioned by Attorney General
Roy Cooper revealed that the State Bureau of Investigation withheld
or distorted evidence in more than 200 cases at the expense of
potentially innocent men and women. 3 defendants in botched cases
have been executed.
(SFC, 8/19/10, p.A6)
2010 Sep 3, A weakened
Hurricane Earl delivered only a glancing blow to North Carolina's
Outer Banks on its way up the East Coast, flooding roads on the
narrow vacation islands and knocking out power but staying farther
offshore than feared.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 14, In North Carolina
Ariana Iacono (14) went back to school with her mother and her nose
ring, after her first suspension for a nose piercing ended. She was
suspended again for five days because her nose ring violated the
Johnston County school system's dress code. If she comes back to
school on Sept. 21 with the nose stud, she'll face a 10-day
suspension or referral to "alternative schooling." A similar
situation went to the courts in 2002, when a woman was fired from
her job at a Costco store over her eyebrow ring. The woman was also
a member of the Church of Body Modification, but the courts
eventually ruled that her religious beliefs did not require her to
always wear her jewelry.
(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Oct 1, Medicago, a
Canadian company, broke ground at Durham, NC, on its first American
facility. The company genetically manipulates tobacco plants to
produce proteins used in making flu vaccines.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.36)
2010 Oct 9, In North Carolina
the parents of Zahra Baker (10) reportedly saw her alive for the
last time. Stepmother Eliza Baker told police on Oct 24 that Zahra
was dead and that her body had been dismembered. On Nov 12 police
found a bone that matched Zahra’s DNA. On Feb 21, 2011, Elisa Baker
was indicted for the murder of Zahra.
(SFC, 11/16/10, p.A18)(SFC, 2/22/11, p.A4)
2010 Nov 14, Delvonte Tisdale
(16) apparently fell from the sky after stowing away in an
airplane’s wheel well at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport
in Charlotte, NC. His mutilated body was found in a Boston suburb.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/2dmblgm)
2010 Dec 7, Elizabeth Edwards
(b.1949), separated wife of former presidential candidate John
Edwards, died in North Carolina of cancer.
(SFC, 12/8/10, p.A8)
2011 Jan 10, North
Carolina-based Duke Energy announced that it would buy Progress
Energy for $13.7 billion.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.39)
2011 Feb 10, In Cary, North
Carolina, Devon Mitchell (19), who took 6 people hostage at a
Raleigh suburb bank, was shot to death as he tried to leave with a
woman hostage. Police later reported that Mitchell did not have a
firearm.
(SFC, 2/11/11, p.A6)(SFC, 2/14/11, p.A4)
2011 Apr 5, Storms pummeled the
US South with tornadoes. At least 8 people were reported killed in
the Carolinas, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee.
(SFC, 4/6/11, p.A11)
2011 Apr 17, A furious storm
system that kicked up tornadoes, flash floods and hail as big as
softballs has left at least 45 people dead on a rampage that
stretched for days as it barreled from Oklahoma to North Carolina
and Virginia. 11 people were confirmed dead in Bertie County, NC,
bringing the state's death toll to at least 18 people. Authorities
have said 7 died in Arkansas; 7 in Alabama; 2 in Oklahoma; one in
Mississippi and at least 5 in Virginia.
(AP, 4/17/11)(AP, 4/18/11)
2011 Apr 18, In North Carolina
Crystal Mangum (32) was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder
and two counts of larceny. She has been in jail since April 3, when
police charged her with assault in the stabbing of her boyfriend
Reginald Daye (46). He died after nearly two weeks at a hospital.
Mangum had falsely accused white lacrosse players of raping her at a
2006 party for which she was hired to perform as a stripper.
(AP, 4/19/11)
2011 Jun 3, Former North
Carolina US Senator John Edwards (57) was charged with using
$925,000 in under-the-table campaign contributions to hide his
pregnant mistress during 2008 run for president.
(SFC, 6/4/11, p.A5)
2011 Jun 10, In Kinston, North
Carolina, Deputy Warren Lewis was shot and killed while serving a
murder warrant on suspects. 5 suspects were taken into custody.
(SFC, 6/11/11, p.A5)
2011 Jun 11, In North Carolina
the bodies of 4 people were found shot to death along a highway in
Durham.
(SSFC, 6/19/11, p.A8)
2011 Jun 12, North Carolina’s
Democrat Gov. Beverly Perdue became the state’s first governor to
veto a budget bill since the chief executive was given the power in
1997. She said the Republican led Legislature’s $20 billion proposal
would do generational damage to public education.
(SFC, 6/13/11, p.A6)
2011 Jun 13, The death of Betty
Neumar, a 79 year old grandmother, left authorities with many
unanswered questions. Neumar was a suspect in a North Carolina
murder: she was accused of soliciting someone to kill her husband.
But investigators also discovered that over the years, she had been
married five times, and several of her husbands died under
suspicious circumstances. Authorities were looking into those other
cases, but her death may mean they will never be
resolved.
(AP, 6/13/11)
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Subject = North Carolina
End of file.