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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–11.Back to highlights
Entries
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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William R. Kenan Jr. gives $275,000 for a football stadium
Kenan announced a gift of 275,000 dollars to build Kenan Memorial Stadium in honor of his parents, William Rand and Mary Hargrave Kenan. Construction began in November 1926.
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Kenan Memorial Stadium opens
Kenan Memorial Stadium, the gift of William Rand Kenan Jr., hosted its first event on November 12, 1927, when Carolina beat Davidson 27 to 0. It was formally dedicated before the Thanksgiving Day game against Virginia on November 24, when Governor Angus McLean accepted it for the state and the University.
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Frank Porter Graham is inaugurated as president in Kenan Stadium
On Armistice Day, delegates from campuses across the country attended a full-dress ceremony in the stadium. In an address of more than an hour and a quarter, Graham restated the university's freedom to teach and to report findings whatever powerful lobbies thought, and praised Chase. It was the last such inauguration for the Chapel Hill campus alone.
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Governor Broughton speaks at a Pre-Flight School graduation in Kenan Stadium
Broughton and UNC president Frank Porter Graham both spoke at Navy Pre-Flight School graduation exercises in Kenan Stadium on June 2, 1943.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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President John F. Kennedy speaks at UNC
President John F. Kennedy received an honorary degree at UNC's University Day ceremony, held on the University's 168th birthday, and spoke to an estimated 32,000 people in Kenan Stadium. He pledged that Americans would be neither Red nor dead, and announced a $1 million federal materials research contract for UNC.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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UNC and Chapel Hill celebrate their bicentennial
UNC marked 200 years since the laying of Old East's cornerstone with a Bicentennial Convocation in Kenan Stadium, where President Bill Clinton spoke to about 45,000 people. The town dedicated Michael Brown's mural of the October 12, 1793, lot auction at the Franklin Street post office.
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Bunting's Tar Heels beat sixth-ranked Florida State 41-9 at home
In Carolina's 2001 home opener, moved after the September 11 attacks postponed the SMU game, Bunting's team beat Bobby Bowden's Florida State 41-9 for his first win as head coach.
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UNC dedicates the William E. Scroggs locker room at Kenan Stadium
Lacrosse alumni and the Educational Foundation paid to refurbish the men's lacrosse locker room at the old Kenan Field House, and it was dedicated in Scroggs's name before lacrosse alumni and fans.
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UNC's Noteworthy Firsts program honors Karen Parker
At a reception in Kenan Stadium, UNC honored Parker among 21 people whose names were given to need-based undergraduate awards and graduate fellowships in its Noteworthy Firsts initiative, begun by Chancellor Carol Folt in 2016.
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UNC moves Kenan Stadium's honor from William R. Kenan Sr. to his son
Chancellor Carol Folt announced that, after talking with the family, the university would change the stadium plaques to remove the honor to William R. Kenan Sr., who led a white supremacist unit in the 1898 Wilmington massacre, and focus instead on the donor, William R. Kenan Jr.
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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.
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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 1, 2026.
