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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis. Browse all 77 storylines. Every entry names its source. See all 667 sources.

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Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–64.Back to highlights

Entries

  1. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799

  2. 1790s
  3. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Old East cornerstone is laid

    William Richardson Davie and fellow trustees laid Old East’s cornerstone; October 12 is observed as University Day.

  4. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

  5. 1880s
  6. Founding or opening · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Students found the Order of Gimghoul after hearing the Dromgoole story

    Five undergraduates founded a secret society after hearing university president Kemp Battle tell the Dromgoole story. They first called it the Order of Dromgoole and later shortened the name to Gimghoul.

  7. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

  8. 1920s
  9. Chapel Hill Rameses, the live ram mascot, makes his debut for Carolina

    Head cheerleader Vic Huggins won athletic department approval and $25 to buy a ram as a mascot. Rameses first appeared at the football game against the Virginia Military Institute, which Carolina won 3-0.

  10. Chapel Hill Contractor Charlie Lee Martindale opens an airfield north of Chapel Hill

    Martindale bought a 50-acre plot from philosophy professor Horace Williams and laid out an airfield he called Martindale Field. By 1931 it was known as the Chapel Hill airport.

  11. 1930s
  12. Appointment, election or service · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Susan Grey Akers becomes UNC's first woman full professor

    When Louis Round Wilson left the new School of Library Science, Akers was made its acting director and promoted to full professor, the first woman at UNC-Chapel Hill to hold that rank.

  13. 1940s
  14. Appointment, election or service · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Akers is named dean of the School of Library Science, UNC's first woman dean

    Akers, director of the school since 1935, was named dean, the first woman dean at UNC-Chapel Hill. She held the post until 1954.

  15. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill The Navy B-1 Band serves at Chapel Hill

    The B-1 Band, 44 Black musicians sworn in at Raleigh on May 27, 1942 as the first African Americans to serve in the Navy at general rank, played for the Navy Pre-Flight School at UNC from July 1942 to April 1944. Barred from campus housing, they lived in the new Black community center on Roberson Street, now the Hargraves Center.

  16. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

  17. Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill Andy Griffith plays his first role, in The Gondoliers at Memorial Hall

    Andy Griffith, who had arrived at Carolina in July 1944, auditioned on a whim and made his stage debut in a Carolina Playmakers production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers at Memorial Hall.

  18. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill UNC begins marking Hinton James Day each February 12

    The university started Hinton James Day in 1945, during the sesquicentennial of its first student's arrival. It falls on February 12 and now also honors other Carolina firsts, including Sallie Walker Stockard and Henry Owl.

  19. 1960s
  20. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Aycock suspends a basketball player in the betting scandal and makes Dean Smith head coach

    After the player Doug Moe accepted $75 from a gambler in 1961, Chancellor Aycock suspended him and said the integrity of the institution was involved. Aycock then raised assistant coach Dean Smith to head coach.

  21. Life event · Chapel Hill Julius Chambers graduates first in his class from the UNC School of Law

    Chambers graduated first in his class from the University's School of Law in Chapel Hill in 1962. He went on to practice civil rights law in Charlotte.

  22. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill UNC founds its computer science department under Frederick Brooks

    Brooks, 33, founded what became the Department of Computer Science, the second free-standing doctorate-granting department of its kind in the United States; it was first called Information Science and took the name computer science in 1971.

  23. Chapel Hill William F. Little chairs the chemistry department

    Little, who had come to Carolina as a chemistry instructor in 1956, became department chair in 1965 at 35. He hired young scholars and nearly doubled the faculty to 30.

  24. 1970s
  25. Appointment, election or service · UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill Roberta Jackson joins UNC's School of Education as its first Black tenure-track faculty member

    Roberta Jackson joined the UNC School of Education in 1970, a year after her husband Blyden Jackson joined the English department, as the school's first Black tenure-track faculty member. She earned tenure in 1974 and became the first tenured Black woman in the university's Division of Academic Affairs.

  26. Chapel Hill Kenan Laboratories open for the chemistry department

    The chemistry department's Kenan Labs opened in 1971, a building project Little led as chair to give the growing faculty laboratory space.

  27. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Woody Durham calls Carolina football and basketball on the radio

    Durham, a 1963 UNC graduate, was the radio play-by-play voice of Tar Heel football and men's basketball for 40 years, calling more than 1,800 broadcasts.

  28. Chapel Hill Andy Griffith sets up a scholarship for Carolina drama and music students

    Griffith established a scholarship fund in his name for promising dramatic art and music students at Carolina, which the university says continues today.

  29. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill North Carolina funds UNC's TEACCH autism program as a statewide system of regional centers

    State funding in 1972 created a regional-center system for TEACCH, the autism program Eric Schopler had developed at UNC-Chapel Hill, providing clinical services, training and research across North Carolina.

  30. Recent decades · 1976–2026

  31. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Anson Dorrance coaches the UNC men's soccer team

    Dorrance, a 1974 UNC graduate, coached the Tar Heel men from 1977 through the 1988 season and won 172 games with them.

  32. Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill Andy Griffith speaks at University Day in Memorial Hall

    Griffith gave the University Day speech in Memorial Hall and recalled fighting back tears as he approached the building where he had first performed.

  33. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill UNC starts a varsity women's soccer team with Anson Dorrance as its coach

    UNC named Dorrance head coach of its new women's soccer program in 1979, and he coached the men's and women's teams at the same time for the next decade.

  34. 1980s
  35. Statistic or record · Northside, Chapel Hill Northside's Black population falls by about 40 percent

    Between 1980 and 2010 Northside's Black population fell by roughly 40 percent as investors bought homes and converted or replaced them as student rentals; over the same period the share of university workers living 10 or more miles away rose above 60 percent.

  36. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Aziz Sancar joins the UNC faculty

    Sancar joined Carolina's faculty in 1982; he became the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the School of Medicine, where his lab mapped how cells repair damaged DNA.

  37. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill William E. Leuchtenburg joins the UNC history faculty

    Leuchtenburg came to UNC-Chapel Hill in 1982 and taught for two decades, retiring in 2002 as William Rand Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor.

  38. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Charles Kuralt gives the UNC spring commencement address

    Kuralt, who had edited the Daily Tar Heel as a student, returned to Chapel Hill to deliver the University's spring commencement address in 1985. He told the graduates that the influence of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill moves outward to the farthest corners of the state.

  39. Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill UNC men's soccer wins the ACC title and reaches the NCAA Final Four

    Under Dorrance the Tar Heel men won the Atlantic Coast Conference title in 1987 and reached the NCAA Final Four.

  40. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Oliver Smithies and Nobuyo Maeda join the UNC faculty

    Smithies and Nobuyo Maeda came to UNC's School of Medicine in 1988; Smithies later described himself as the trailing spouse, UNC having recruited Maeda.

  41. 1990s
  42. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill UNC's basketball team takes the court in Alexander Julian's argyle uniforms

    At Dean Smith's request, the Chapel Hill native Alexander Julian redesigned the Tar Heel men's basketball uniforms, adding an argyle side panel that debuted in the 1991-92 season and became a symbol of the university.

  43. Chapel Hill Smithies lab develops the first cystic fibrosis animal model

    Smithies's laboratory at UNC used his gene-targeting method to produce the first animal model of cystic fibrosis.

  44. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill WXYC makes the first internet radio simulcast

    WXYC streamed its radio broadcast over the internet on November 7, 1994.

  45. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Willie Scroggs is UNC's point person for the 1999 Special Olympics World Summer Games

    As an athletics administrator Scroggs was the university's point person for the Special Olympics World Summer Games, part of which were held in Chapel Hill.

  46. 2000s
  47. Wilson Library, Chapel Hill Andy Griffith gives his career memorabilia to Wilson Library

    Griffith donated his collection of career memorabilia, including a guitar, to the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library, the same year he was among the first three recipients of the Carolina Performing Arts Lifetime Achievement Award.

  48. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill The Sancars start Carolina Turk Evi

    Aziz and Gwen Sancar set up the nonprofit Carolina Turk Evi to host Turkish students and scholars at UNC and promote understanding between Turks and Americans.

  49. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill Three alumni recreate the walk attributed to Hinton James and finish at the Old Well

    Nick Becketti, Bryan Jones and Whitney Reeds set out from the coast near Wilmington in the summer of 2008 to repeat the roughly 170-mile walk attributed to Hinton James. The university says the two-week trip ended at the Old Well in Chapel Hill.

  50. 2010s
  51. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Carol Folt is installed as chancellor at Chapel Hill

    Folt was installed as the eleventh chancellor of the university on University Day in Polk Place, the first woman to hold the post. Chief Justice Sarah Parker administered the oath, and system president Tom Ross presided and presented the chancellor's medallion.

  52. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Willie Scroggs retires as a senior associate athletic director at UNC

    Scroggs retired at the end of June 2014 after decades overseeing athletics facilities at Carolina, including work at Carmichael Arena, Boshamer Stadium, Kenan Stadium, Woollen Gym and the Eddie Smith Field House.

  53. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill About 2,000 people hold a vigil in UNC's Pit for Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha

    The day after the three were killed, an estimated 2,000 people gathered at the Pit on the UNC campus. Speakers included Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke, Deah's brother Farris Barakat, Chancellors Carol L. Folt and Randy Woodson, and Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt.

  54. Founding or opening · Northside, Chapel Hill UNC, Self-Help, the Jackson Center and the town launch the Northside neighborhood initiative

    UNC-Chapel Hill committed a $3 million, 10-year, no-interest loan to Self-Help to buy Northside homes as they came on the market and hold them in a land bank for affordable resale or rental. The Jackson Center and the Town of Chapel Hill were partners.

  55. Health or relief action · Chapel Hill UNC dental students hold the first DEAH DAY of service

    More than 350 students of the UNC School of Dentistry gave nearly 1,200 hours to 22 local organizations, from Habitat for Humanity in Efland to Table in Carrboro, in memory of Deah Barakat and Yusor Abu-Salha. DEAH DAY stands for Directing Efforts And Honoring Deah And Yusor, and the school was still holding it in 2024.

  56. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill UNC names scholarships for its first Black undergraduates and other "firsts"

    At University Day, UNC named existing grants and fellowships for 21 people who were firsts in its history, among them John L. Brandon, Ralph K. Frasier and LeRoy B. Frasier Jr., its first Black undergraduates.

  57. Award or honor · Friday Center, Chapel Hill Mildred Council receives EmPOWERment's first POWER award

    At a gala at the Friday Center, basketball coach Roy Williams presented Mildred "Mama Dip" Council with the inaugural POWER award from EmPOWERment Inc., a group promoting affordable housing and economic development in Chapel Hill's neediest neighborhoods. The honor came in the month of her restaurant's 40th anniversary.

  58. Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill Michael Jordan expands the Jordan Brand partnership with UNC athletics

    Jordan announced an expansion of his Jordan Brand partnership with North Carolina Tar Heels athletics in March 2017, saying that it is always great to come home.

  59. Naming or commemoration · Dean E. Smith Center, Chapel Hill The Smith Center floor is dedicated as Roy Williams Court

    UNC announced on August 2, 2018 that it would name the Dean E. Smith Center playing floor for Williams, and the floor was dedicated on August 24.

  60. Construction or physical change · 1609 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Ground is broken for the Sancar Turkish Cultural and Community Center

    Aziz and Gwen Sancar broke ground at 1609 East Franklin Street on a 1.7-acre center with a 9,700-square-foot community hall and a two-story guesthouse for Turkish students and scholars.

  61. Naming or commemoration · Karen Shelton Stadium, Chapel Hill UNC names its new field hockey stadium for Karen Shelton

    The university announced that its field hockey facility would be called Karen Shelton Stadium, the first UNC playing field named in honor of a woman. The team had moved in at the start of preseason that August, and the stadium holds about 1,000 spectators.

  62. Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill UNC trustees vote to house the monument in a new $5.3 million University History and Education Center

    At a special meeting the Board of Trustees approved a four-part plan for the Board of Governors: relocate the statue and tablets into a new free-standing building at the former Odum Village site on south campus, add a McCorkle Place gateway with plaques, and continue contextualizing campus history. The center was priced at $5.3 million with $800,000 a year to operate; Folt said police advised that the statue could not safely return to McCorkle Place.

  63. Naming or commemoration · Dorrance Field, Chapel Hill UNC dedicates Dorrance Field at its new soccer and lacrosse stadium

    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.

  64. 2020s
  65. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Tressie McMillan Cottom joins the faculty of UNC’s School of Information and Library Science

    Sociologist and author Tressie McMillan Cottom joined the UNC School of Information and Library Science as an associate professor and became a senior faculty researcher in the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life.

  66. Publication, speech or performance · Cheek-Clark Building, UNC Exhibit honoring housekeeping and facilities staff opens in the renovated Cheek-Clark Building

    A lobby exhibit in the renovated Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark Building presents the lives of Cheek, Clark and groundskeeper William Hubbard with a timeline of the university's housekeeping and facilities work.

  67. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill UNC trustees vote to remove Josephus Daniels’s name from the student stores building

    On July 29, 2020 the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted 11 to 2 to remove four names from campus buildings, among them Josephus Daniels. The Daniels Building became UNC Student Stores, and the names of Charles Brantley Aycock, Julian Shakespeare Carr and Thomas Ruffin Sr. were removed at the same meeting.

  68. Award or honor · Chapel Hill Tressie McMillan Cottom wins a MacArthur Fellowship

    The MacArthur Foundation named McMillan Cottom a 2020 fellow for her work as a sociologist, writer and public scholar on race, gender, education and digital technology, including her books Lower Ed and Thick. She was an associate professor at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science.

  69. Award or honor · Chapel Hill Jenny Levy is elected to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame

    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.

  70. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill UNC announces a permanent memorial to James Cates in the Pit

    Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz announced that a permanent memorial to Cates would be installed in the Pit later in 2022, developed with students, faculty, staff and the Cates family, approved by the Board of Trustees and supported by the Town of Chapel Hill.

  71. Naming or commemoration · The Pit, UNC-Chapel Hill UNC dedicates the James L. Cates Jr. Memorial in the Pit

    On the 52nd anniversary of his death, UNC dedicated a black lectern-style marker near the spot where Cates was stabbed, with an inscription from the University and the Town of Chapel Hill. Speakers included Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Congresswoman-elect Valerie Foushee for the family, student body president Taliajah Vann and BSM president Julia Clark.

  72. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Karen Shelton announces her retirement as UNC field hockey coach

    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.

  73. Chapel Hill Daniel Wallace gives UNC's Winter Commencement address

    Novelist and English professor Daniel Wallace was the speaker at UNC's Winter Commencement in the Dean E. Smith Center.

  74. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Erin Matson succeeds Karen Shelton as UNC field hockey coach

    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.

  75. Award or honor · Chapel Hill UNC awards Alexander Julian an honorary Doctor of Arts

    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.

  76. Violence or armed conflict · Chapel Hill Zijie Yan, a UNC professor, is killed on campus

    On August 28, 2023, Zijie Yan, an associate professor, was shot and killed in UNC's Caudill Labs, and the campus locked down for about three hours. Graduate student Tailei Qi was arrested that afternoon and charged with first-degree murder; the case had not come to trial by March 2026.

  77. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Guskiewicz leaves the Chapel Hill chancellorship

    He announced on December 8, 2023 that he would step down after nearly five years leading the campus, and January 12, 2024 was his last day. He became president of Michigan State University on March 4, 2024.

  78. Publication, speech or performance · Kenan Stadium, UNC-Chapel Hill Mia Hamm gives UNC's spring Commencement address in Kenan Stadium

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

  79. Chapel Hill UNC extends Bubba Cunningham's contract and names his successor as athletics director

    The university gave Cunningham a two-year extension through July 2029 and announced he would leave the athletics director's post in the summer of 2026 to become senior adviser to the chancellor and athletics director. Racing executive Steve Newmark was hired as executive associate athletic director to succeed him.

  80. Publication, speech or performance · Horace Williams tract, Chapel Hill UNC announces a campus extension at Carolina North

    The university announced plans for a mixed-use extension on about 230 acres around the former Horace Williams Airport, with student and workforce housing, research space and retail, calling it the largest expansion since 1793; groundbreaking is expected in summer 2027.

  81. Naming or commemoration · UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill UNC says a new residence hall will be named Jackson Hall for Blyden and Roberta Jackson

    UNC-Chapel Hill announced that one of two new residence halls, to be built on the site of the former Jackson Hall that housed undergraduate admissions, will be named Jackson Hall for Blyden and Roberta Jackson. The two halls will add about 730 beds.

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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.

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Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026