Skip to content

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

7 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–7.Back to highlights

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

7 dated events
2018Recent decades
  1. Recent decades · 1976–2026
  2. Silent Sam is toppled

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    On the evening of August 20, 2018, the eve of fall classes, about 250 protesters pulled UNC's Confederate monument in McCorkle Place from its pedestal at around 9:20 p.m. The toppling followed a year of campaigning for removal after the 2017 Charlottesville rally, and campus authorities took the statue to an undisclosed location.

    Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

    Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument) · McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

  3. The UNC Board of Governors gives Chapel Hill until November 15 to propose a 'lawful and lasting' plan for the monument

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    Eight days after the toppling, the Board of Governors met for nearly two hours in closed session and adopted a resolution directing Chancellor Folt and the trustees to present by November 15 a plan offering 'a lawful and lasting path that protects public safety, preserves the monument and its history'. Thom Goolsby cast the lone no vote, and the board ordered an outside review of the University's handling of the August 20 protest. The trustees met the same day.

    Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

    Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument)

  4. UNC trustees vote to house the monument in a new $5.3 million University History and Education Center

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    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.

    Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

    Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument) · McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

  5. The Board of Governors rejects the history center and appoints a task force with a March 15 deadline

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    After a nearly three-hour closed session the Board of Governors declined the trustees' $5.3 million history center, citing cost and public safety, and named five of its members to work with Folt and the trustees on a new proposal by March 15, 2019. Folt said the plan 'hasn't satisfied anyone' and that the campus would now look at off-campus options.

    Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

    People: Margaret Spellings

  6. Folt orders the Silent Sam pedestal removed and announces she will step down

    Appointment, election or service · McCorkle Place, Chapel Hill

    Folt ordered the removal on the Monday and announced in a campuswide email that she would resign, saying the remaining parts of the monument threatened the safety of the community. The university said at 1 a.m. on Tuesday that removal had begun, and by 2:40 a.m. a crew had taken the last of the base from the quad.

    Part of Toppling of Silent Sam, 2018

    Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument) · McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

  7. The UNC System gives Silent Sam to the Sons of Confederate Veterans with a $2.5 million trust in a same-day consent judgment

    Law, policy or court · Orange County

    The North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans sued the UNC System and Board of Governors over the monument and a consent judgment was entered the same day in Orange County Superior Court. The System handed over the statue, to be kept outside the fourteen counties with a System campus, and endowed a $2.5 million charitable trust from non-state funds for its care and display. Board chair Randy Ramsey said the deal let the University 'move forward'.

    Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

    Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument)

  8. Judge Allen Baddour voids the Silent Sam settlement in Hillsborough for lack of standing

    Law, policy or court · Hillsborough

    At a hearing in Hillsborough, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour ruled that the Sons of Confederate Veterans had no standing to bring the suit and set aside the consent judgment and the $2.5 million trust. Five UNC students and a faculty member represented by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law had sought to intervene; their motion was denied but the judge took up the standing question they raised.

    Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

    Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument)

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