On April 14, 1942, the destroyer USS Roper sank the German submarine U-85 off the Outer Banks between Wimble Shoals and Cape Hatteras.
Topics Related to This Day in North Carolina History
On April 13, 1947, a mob attacked civil rights protesters at the bus station in Chapel Hill. Earlier that year, the Congress of Racial Equality laid plans to test the enforcement of a Supreme Court decision that declared segregation on interstate buses and trains unconstitutional.
On April 12, 1865, Union Gen. George Stoneman and his forces burned the already abandoned Salisbury Prison, as well as the town’s other public buildings, industrial structures and supply depots as part of raid through western North Carolina.
On April 12, 1776, 83 delegates to North Carolina’s Fourth Provincial Congress, meeting in Halifax, passed a unanimous resolution now known as the Halifax Resolves. The resolves advocated severing North Carolina’s ties with England and indicated support for independence for all American colonies.
North Carolina became the first colony to officially commit such intentions to paper, striking the first blow for an independent America.
On April 11, 1865, as part of Stoneman’s Raid, troops under the command of Colonel William J. Palmer split from the main force and engaged in a skirmish with Confederate forces at Shallow Ford. The ford is a landmark on the Yadkin River and is rich in history. In the mid-1700s immigrants used Shallow Ford as a crossing point on the river for the Great Wagon Road. That route, along an ancient Indian trading path, extended from Pennsylvania to Georgia.
On April 11, 1896, industrialist and Progressive Era governor Thomas Michael Holt died at age 64.
On April 11, 1900, Charles B. Aycock was unanimously nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor of North Carolina.
Aycock practiced law and co-founded the Daily Argus newspaper in Goldsboro, but it became clear that politics was his true passion. He distrusted the Republican Party, which supported African American involvement in government and endorsed the idea that politics should be reserved for the White race.
On April 10, 1922, WBT in Charlotte received a broadcast license, becoming the first commercial radio station in North Carolina. Advances in radio took place in three North Carolina cities in 1922. In Raleigh, on the campus of what is now N.C. State University, engineers installed a transmitter and initiated experimental broadcasts in March 1922. Regular transmission began on October 16, the day before the State Fair.