The Old North State has a rich recorded history that has lasted approximately 450 years.
Explore our encyclopedia
North Carolina played a critical, often overlooked, role in our nation’s founding. We at the North Carolina History Project have put together this timeline of our state’s contributions to the American Revolution. The following timeline chronologically lays out some of the most important events in North Carolina’s revolutionary history and links out to our more...
The North Carolina Historical Review includes a rich collection of articles about the American Revolution. This list was compiled by Kathryn McKee and Jane Shaw Stroup.
Some revolutionary battles took place in the colonies before independence was declared on July 4, 1776. One of those was the February 27, 1776, battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge in Pender County, North Carolina.
The subject of Scottish folklore and myth, Flora MacDonald assisted Prince Charles Stuart in his escape from King George II. In 1774, she moved to North Carolina, where her Loyalist husband and son fought in the Battle of Moores Creek.
Josiah Martin, the last royal governor of North Carolina, was born in Ireland in 1737. Due to his family's connection to the British crown, Martin replaced Governor Tryon in 1771 as royal governor of North Carolina. Martin assumed a difficult position because Patriot colonists in North Carolina had long resented overwhelming British taxation and the War of Regulation remained fresh in the colonists' minds.
General Griffith Rutherford led a short but destructive march against the mountain-dwelling Cherokee in September 1776. Although casualties were relatively low on both sides, Rutherford’s army razed over thirty important Cherokee communities causing tribesmen and women to flee the mountains and start life anew elsewhere. Some historians claim that had the Cherokee recovered and fought with the British during the Revolutionary War, the conclusion may have been different.
The story is complicated. In the United States in the late 1800s, demand for wood seemed insatiable—for houses, ships, fuel, and railroad ties. Americans were logging trees all over the country.
Today, the Cape Lookout National Seashore includes three barrier islands along North Carolina’s southern coast. One of those is Shackleford Banks, the westernmost island, stretching nine miles eastward from the Beaufort Inlet. Known for its wild horse population and primitive landscape, it was once home to a prosperous nineteenth-century whaling community called Diamond City. Diamond...
We were headed to the airport that day to fly to Washington for meetings. But before we departed, I had a few errands to run. Our house/office was on 2nd St. SE — our front door faced the Library of Congress annex. We were two short blocks from the US Capitol, in the heart of…
Americans born after the attacks are now adults, making the 25th anniversary not only a commemoration but also an effort to preserve firsthand accounts of Sept. 11.
The method of laying and collecting this species of taxes in each State can, in all its parts, be adopted and employed by the federal government.
Commentary
Reflections from North Carolina’s Covid Generation
I was in middle school and forced to go to “virtual school” for nearly two years after the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in the spring of 2020.
What Is the Liberty Pole?
What does Julius Caesar have to do with North Carolina’s state seal and the Halifax Resolves? On April 12, 2026, The Halifax State Historic Site celebrated the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Halifax Resolves. Representatives from the site had put up a “Liberty Pole” as part of their festivities in celebration of the...
North Carolina’s Role in the Creation of the U.S. Forest Service
The story is complicated. In the United States in the late 1800s, demand for wood seemed insatiable—for houses, ships, fuel, and railroad ties. Americans were logging trees all over the country.