On February 21, 1764, famed frontiersman Daniel Boone sold land near what is now Mocksville to settle debts before exploring westward.
On February 21, 1903, prominent attorney Ernest Haywood shot and killed Ludlow Skinner, the son of a popular Baptist minister, in broad daylight on Raleigh’s busy Fayetteville Street.
On February 21, 1893, the General Assembly adopted Esse Quam Videri as the official state motto. Translated from Latin, the phrase means “To be rather than to seem.”
On February 21, 1933, Nina Simone, often called the “high priestess of soul,” was born in the small town of Tryon in Polk County.
On February 20, 1885, 22 years after Emancipation, freedmen in Edgecombe County incorporated Princeville, the state’s first town founded by African Americans.
On February 20, 1948, Piedmont Airlines launched its first passenger flight. The flight took off from Wilmington and arrived in Cincinnati after making several stops.
On February 20, 1980, Joseph Banks Rhine of Durham, a controversial investigator into the paranormal, died.
Rhine, with his pioneering work in parapsychology, gained national notoriety for himself and Duke University, where he worked.
On February 18, 1927, the General Assembly adopted “The Old North State” as North Carolina’s official state song.