Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

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.

Search and filters

Search and filters · 1 active
Carolina Sports
Clear all
Vertical timeline Timeline overview

216 dated events and 4 storylines match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 201–220 of 220, 200 to a page.Back to highlights

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

20 dated events
2019Recent decades
  1. Recent decades · 1976–2026

  2. UNC dedicates Dorrance Field at its new soccer and lacrosse stadium

    Naming or commemoration · Dorrance Field, Chapel Hill

    The university dedicated the field at its new soccer and lacrosse stadium to Dorrance before the women's game against Notre Dame, in his 43rd year of coaching at Carolina.

  3. UNC field hockey wins the 2019 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the 2019 NCAA field hockey title.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Karen Shelton

  4. Mike Fox retires as UNC head baseball coach

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Fox retired after 22 seasons leading the Tar Heels, with a 948-406-1 record at UNC and seven College World Series trips. His longtime assistant Scott Forbes was named the program's 25th head coach.

  5. Roy Williams announces his retirement at the Smith Center

    Appointment, election or service · Dean E. Smith Center, Chapel Hill

    Williams, 70, announced his retirement at a Smith Center news conference after 33 seasons as a college head coach, with 903 wins and three NCAA titles at UNC.

  6. UNC field hockey wins the 2020 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the 2020 NCAA field hockey title. The postponed 2020 championship was played in spring 2021.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Karen Shelton

  7. Jenny Levy is elected to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    UNC announced that Levy had been chosen for the 2021 class of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in her 26th season at Carolina, with a record of 373 wins and 117 losses and two NCAA titles at that point.

  8. UNC names its athletics media center for Woody Durham

    Naming or commemoration · Dean E. Smith Center, Chapel Hill

    UNC Athletics and the Rams Club named the media and communications center beside the Dean E. Smith Center the Woody Durham Media and Communications Center, with trustee approval, and recognized his family at halftime of the February 16 men's basketball game against Pittsburgh.

  9. UNC women’s lacrosse wins the 2022 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the 2022 NCAA women’s lacrosse championship.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Jenny Levy

  10. UNC field hockey wins the 2022 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the 2022 NCAA field hockey title.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Karen Shelton

  11. Karen Shelton announces her retirement as UNC field hockey coach

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Shelton retired after 42 seasons with a record of 745 wins, 172 losses and 9 ties and 10 NCAA championships, the last won by an unbeaten 2022 team. She is the winningest coach in the sport's history.

  12. Erin Matson succeeds Karen Shelton as UNC field hockey coach

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    UNC named Matson, who had graduated a month earlier after playing on four championship teams, the fifth head coach in program history and only the second since the early 1980s.

    People: Erin Matson

  13. Jenny Levy wins her 400th game at Dorrance Field

    Competition or sporting achievement · Dorrance Field, Chapel Hill

    UNC beat Boston College 16 to 5 at Dorrance Field for Levy's 400th career victory, all of them at Carolina, in her 28th season. She was the sixth head coach in any division of the sport to reach 400 wins.

  14. UNC awards Alexander Julian an honorary Doctor of Arts

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    At Spring Commencement, UNC-Chapel Hill gave Alexander Julian, a Chapel Hill native who entered with the Class of 1969 and designed the argyle basketball uniforms, an honorary Doctor of Arts, one of six honorary degrees that year.

  15. UNC women’s tennis wins the 2023 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the NCAA women’s team tennis championship.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

  16. UNC field hockey wins the 2023 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the 2023 NCAA field hockey title.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Erin Matson

  17. Anson Dorrance announces his retirement as UNC women's soccer coach

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Dorrance told his team he was retiring after 45 seasons with the women's program, days before the season opener; associate head coach Damon Nahas became interim head coach. His women's teams went 934-88-53 and won 21 NCAA titles.

    Part of UNC women’s soccer national dynasty · 26 events

  18. UNC women’s soccer wins the 2024 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Cary, North Carolina; UNC–Chapel Hill team

    UNC defeated Wake Forest, 1–0, in the national final.

    Part of UNC women’s soccer national dynasty · 26 events

  19. Occoneechee Speedway joins Eno River State Park

    Property or economic transaction · Eno River

    North Carolina finalized the addition of more than 200 acres near Hillsborough, including the Historic Occoneechee Speedway trail and the James M. Johnston Nature Preserve, to Eno River State Park. The Eno River Association had arranged the sale from the Jenrette Foundation, formerly the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust.

    Part of Saving the Eno · 6 events

    Subject: Occoneechee Speedway · Eno River State Park

  20. Mia Hamm gives UNC's spring Commencement address in Kenan Stadium

    Publication, speech or performance · Kenan Stadium, UNC-Chapel Hill

    Former Tar Heel soccer player Mia Hamm, class of 1994, delivered the 2025 Commencement address to 6,829 graduates in Kenan Stadium.

    Subject: Kenan Stadium

  21. UNC women’s lacrosse wins the 2025 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the 2025 NCAA women’s lacrosse championship.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Jenny Levy

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