Chronology

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1. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

2. 1967–1970
   Chapel Hill Sylvia Wilkinson teaches creative writing at UNC

   Novelist Sylvia Wilkinson was a lecturer in creative writing and visiting writer at UNC-Chapel Hill from 1967 to 1970, the years in which she published A Killing Frost and Cale.

3. Recent decades · 1976–2026

4. Summer 1993
   Founding or opening · Efland, Orange County Squirrel Nut Zippers form near Chapel Hill

   Jim Mathus and Katharine Whalen, who had moved from Chapel Hill to a farmhouse in Efland, started the band in summer 1993, played their first show that November and signed with Mammoth Records in 1994.

5. 1995
   Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Ben Folds Five release their debut album

   The piano trio, formed in Chapel Hill around 1993, issued its self-titled first album on the independent Caroline label, then signed with Sony's 550 Music, which released Whatever and Ever Amen in 1997.

6. 1996
   Publication, speech or performance · Carrboro (Mammoth Records) Squirrel Nut Zippers release Hot on Mammoth Records

   The band's second album and its single "Hell" reached the national charts during the swing revival, and Hot went platinum.

7. September-October 1996
   Chapel Hill Ben Folds Five record Whatever and Ever Amen at Folds's Chapel Hill home

   After a summer on the Lollapalooza tour, the band recorded its second album in the small living room of Folds's Chapel Hill house with producer Caleb Southern. The album went on to sell more than a million copies.

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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 4, 2026.