North Carolina

North Carolina can be found in the Southeastern region. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the 50 United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and South Carolina to the south, and Tennessee to the west. Raleigh is the state’s capital and Charlotte is its largest city. The Charlotte metropolitan area has a population 2,595,027 in 2020. It is also the 21st most populous area in North Carolina.

The Hardaway Site contains 10,000-year-old evidence of human occupation in North Carolina. Before Europeans arrived, North Carolina was inhabited primarily by Siouan-speaking tribes of Native Americans, including the Carolina Algonquian and Iroquoian. North Carolina was established as a royal colony in 1729 and was one of the Thirteen Colonies. North Carolina is named in honor of King Charles I of England who first formed the English colony, Carolus being Latin for “Charles”. Benjamin Franklin appointed James Davis as the first postmaster in colonial North Carolina in 1755. North Carolina’s April 12th 1776 Halifax Resolves resolution was the first formal call to independence from Great Britain by the American Colonies.

On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the United States constitution. In the run-up to the American Civil War, North Carolina declared its secession from the Union on May 20, 1861, becoming the tenth of eleven states to join the Confederate States of America. The state was returned to the Union after the Civil War on July 4, 1868. On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully piloted the world’s first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. North Carolina uses the slogan “First in Flight” on state license plates to commemorate this achievement, alongside a newer alternative design bearing the slogan “First in Freedom” in reference to the Mecklenburg Declaration and Halifax Resolves.