Eighteen North Carolina facts

  1. North Carolina is a state located on the Atlantic Seaboard in the Southern United States. 
  2. Total Area: 29th among states, 136,420 sq km (52,672 sq mi)
  3. The North Carolina Museum of Art, in Raleigh, is the nation's only art museum whose collection was founded with state funds.
  4. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte. 
  5. North Carolina, as other Southern states, has traditionally been overwhelmingly Protestant, mostly with denominations of British or American origin.
  6. The state's best-known scenic attraction is Great Smoky Mountains National Park, located astride the North Carolina-Tennessee border.
  7.  Spanish colonial forces were the first Europeans to make a permanent settlement in the area, when the Juan Pardo-led Expedition built Fort San Juan in 1567.
  8. Coastal North Carolina was the scene of the first attempt to colonize America by English-speaking people. Two colonies were begun in the 1580's under a charter granted by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Walter
  9. Raleigh. The first colony, established in 1585 under the leadership of Ralph Lane, ended in failure.
  10. North Carolina became one of the English Thirteen Colonies, and was originally known as Province of Carolina.
  11. The Wright Brothers made the first successful airplane flight in 1903 in Kitty Hawk.
  12. On May 20, 1861, North Carolina was one of the last of the Confederate states to declare secession from the Union, to which it was restored on July 4, 1868.
  13. Whitewater Falls in Transylvania County is the highest waterfall in the eastern United States. 
  14. Pepsi was invented and first served in New Bern in 1898.
  15. As of 2008, North Carolina was the third-fastest growing state in the United States and the fastest growing state east of the Mississippi River according to the 2008 Census.
  16. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is the oldest State University in the United States. 
  17. Recognizing eight Native American tribes, North Carolina has the largest population of Native Americans of any state east of the Mississippi River.
  18. Krispy Kreme Doughnut was founded in Winston-Salem.
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