GREENVILLE – Visitors soon will see how researchers figure out what are some of the artifacts recovered from the wreck of the purported Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR), Blackbeard’s flagship, found near Beaufort. The loot includes gold dust, cannons, ballast stones, bones, and bells, among more than 100,000 recovered artifacts. Conservators analyze and document the artifacts [...]
“If a fellow farms hard enough to make something out of it, it’s got to be the hardest work a man’s ever done.” — Lloyd Rigsby
Acclaimed photographer and author Tim Barnwell grew up observing the traditional ways of rural farm families in western North Carolina. Church dinners-on-the grounds, country stores and mule-drawn plows were still [...]
RALEIGH – For most North Carolina students prior to the Civil War, education was only available a few weeks or months a year to white children only, if at all. Families often paid for schooling since public schools had limited geographic reach. Only white male property owners could vote or hold office. That and more [...]
On a hot summer night in 1960, a historic meeting took place in Raleigh in the auditorium of Murphey Elementary School. The meeting sparked the capital city’s participation in the Civil Rights movement. Forty-nine years later, Burning Coal Theatre Company of Raleigh is producing a play, 1960, based on spoken-word interviews with the people who [...]
Nearly 150 years after the Civil War, the bloody Battle of Antietam is still studied and analyzed. At day’s end in the countryside surrounding Maryland’s Antietam Creek, more than 23,000 American soldiers were dead, missing or wounded. Stephen R. Potter, PhD, will speak on “Antietam and the Archaeology of Tactics” Saturday, March 28, from 4-5 [...]
RALEIGH – Coming from the 12th to the 21st century, seven nesting cups deliver a big message about the presumed wreck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR), Blackbeard’s flagship, found near Beaufort. The first discovered fleur de lis pattern (a stylized “flower of the lily”) was found on the third smallest of the cup-shaped weights. [...]
Marauders. Plunderers. Bloodthirsty sea-thieves. Whatever their name, pirates have wreaked havoc on the high seas since waterway travel began. These seafaring scoundrels command attention in a major exhibit that opened Friday, March 6, at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. Knights of the Black Flag explores the legacy of pirates, from ancient times to [...]
February 16, 2009 – 4:42 pm
During his 34 years at Raleigh’s News and Observer, Rob Christensen has covered the contradictions and challenges of Tar Heel politics. North Carolina’s history points to a vibrant, competitive and intensely divided political past. Christensen navigates this political history in his book, The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics: The Personalities, Elections and Events That Shaped [...]
February 10, 2009 – 9:21 am
Gov. Bev Perdue selected a garnet-red formal gown for her Inaugural Ball, which took place Jan. 10 at the Raleigh Convention Center. The governor has donated the silk gown, matching shoes and earrings to the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. The items are on view in the exhibit Elected to Serve: North Carolina’s Governors.
Traditionally, [...]
February 3, 2009 – 9:21 am
Celebrate Black History Month at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. Several February programs highlight North Carolina African Americans, past and present. All programs are free, except the Feb. 19 lecture. Parking is free on weekends.
Music of the Carolinas: The Golden Echoes
The “singing stream” flows through four generations of the Landis family. Their gospel [...]