Topics Related to This Day in North Carolina History

On June 1, 1586, Algonquian chief Pemisapan was decapitated by Edward Nugent, a member of Ralph Lane’s Roanoke Island colony.

Originally known as Wingina, Pemisapan was a well-respected regional leader in the Algonquian tribe on Roanoke Island and the adjacent mainland in the 1580s. Although he and his people helped the English colonists on Roanoke at first, Pemisapan came to the same conclusion that many native chieftains would in future years: the Europeans intended to take over by any means, including violence.

On June 1, 1898, Biltmore Estate owner George Washington Vanderbilt wed American socialite Edith Stuyvesant Dresser in a civil ceremony in Paris. The next day, the couple exchanged vows again during a religious ceremony in Paris’s American Cathedral with much of society’s elite present.

On June 1, 1944, the first case of polio, in what would become a devastating epidemic, was diagnosed in Catawba County. Within 24 hours, six cases were identified in the county and 68 others in the region.

On May 31, 2003, fugitive Eric Rudolph was captured in Murphy. Indicted in 2000 for deadly bombings in Atlanta at the 1996 Olympics and in Birmingham in 1998, Rudolph fled into North Carolina’s Nantahala Forest. Often described as a survivalist, he was familiar with the area since he had been raised in the rugged region. An initial massive search for Rudolph proved unsuccessful.

On May 31, 1870, Richmond County inventor James Lytch was awarded a patent for the Eclipse Lytch Cottonseed Planter. Exhibited at agricultural fairs in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, Lytch’s planter became the instrument of choice in the South. The planter could be purchased for $12. In 1872, Lytch received a medal from the Cape Fear Agricultural Association for his work with cotton planting. He also received an award at the International Cotton Expo in Atlanta in 1881. According to the inventor, 1,000 of his planters were in use by 1880.

On May 30, 1803, Lunsford Lane was born into slavery in the household of Sherwood Haywood, a Raleigh banker.

The Haywoods acknowledged Lane's ambition and talent for business. As a boy he began to pursue entrepreneurial ventures in Raleigh. He developed a variety of enterprises that included selling commodities he kept in a rented warehouse and operating a successful tobacco business where he invented a unique pipe and popular tobacco blend.

On May 30, 1971, Gertrude Weil died at the age of 91.

A humanitarian, social reformer and philanthropist, Weil was born in 1879 in Goldsboro to department store owners Henry and Mina Weil. The Weils were a wealthy Jewish family who settled in North Carolina around the end of the Civil War.

On May 30, 1935, “America’s Town Meeting of the Air” debuted on the radio. The show, America’s first political talk program, was hosted by Washington, N.C., native, George V. Denny, Jr.

With dreams of being an actor, Denny moved to New York after attending UNC. Finding no work in the theater, Denny worked briefly in outreach at Columbia University before being hired by the League for Political Education, which at that time focused primarily on hosting political lectures.

On May 29, 1893, the first Waldensian settlers arrived in Burke County. The Waldenses are a Christian sect founded in the 12th century. For many years the group was confined to a rugged area in the Cottian Alps along the boundary between Italy and France. During the 19th century, many Waldenses emigrated to North and South America to form missionary colonies, not because of religious persecution but because their small strip of land in the Alps was overcrowded.