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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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4 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–4.Back to highlights

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

4 dated events
1958Civil rights era
  1. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  2. William S. Powell becomes curator of the North Carolina Collection

    Appointment, election or service · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Powell, who had joined the university library's North Carolina Collection in 1951, was named its curator after Mary Lindsay Thornton retired.

    People: Mary Lindsay Thornton

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  3. Powell moves from the North Carolina Collection to the history faculty

    Appointment, election or service · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Powell left the North Carolina Collection to teach North Carolina history on the UNC faculty, where he stayed until 1986 and taught more than 6,000 students.

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  4. H. G. Jones becomes curator of the North Carolina Collection

    Appointment, election or service · Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Jones succeeded William S. Powell as curator of UNC's North Carolina Collection and adjunct professor of history. He held the curatorship until he retired in 1994.

    People: William S. Powell

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  5. The North Caroliniana Society is chartered

    Founding or opening · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    H. G. Jones, William S. Powell and Louis M. Connor Jr. chartered the North Caroliniana Society to promote North Carolina's historical, cultural and literary heritage. Its office is at UNC, and its main beneficiary is the North Carolina Collection.

    People: William S. Powell

    Subject: UNC Libraries

Suggest a correction to an entry →

A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →

Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026