NORTH CAROLINA
One of the 13 Colonies and the Southeast's foremost
industrial state. North Carolina presents an unusual amalgam
of tradition and progress. It is a leader in both small-farm
agriculture and business-applied research, and the nation's
major producer of tobacco and tobacco products. The state
also ranks high as a producer of textiles, bricks, wood products,
and seafood. the first sustained airplane flight, by Orville
and wilbur Wright, took place (1903) near Kitty Hawk. Today,
the state boasts of its famous "Research Triangle"
at the University of north Carolina, Duke University, and
north Carolina State University; the schools use their pooled
resources to assist industry.
The state is topographically similar to its
sister state south Carolina, Sharing the same three principal
land regions: (from east to west) the Atlantic Coastal Plain,
the Piedmont Plateau, and the Blue ridge Mountains. mount
Mitchell is the highest peak east of the Mississippi. Beyound
the state's coastline are the islands, reefs, sheltered sounds,
dunes, and capes of the Outer Banks, including Capes fear
and hatteras - the latter so treacherous to ships that it
is often called the graveyard of the Atlantic. About 60 percent
of the state is forested.
Much of north Carolina's early history is shared
with South Carolina, of which it was a part until 1712. Highlights
of this period includes Sir WalterRaleigh's unsuccessful attempts
(1585,1587) to establish a colony on roanoke Island. Although
it lasted only about a year, raleigh's initial settlment was
the first English colony in the New World; when all members
of his second settlement (1587 -?) disappeared, it came to
be called the "Lost Colony"; amoung the missing
was Virginia Dare, first child of English parentage born in
America.
Among the region's problems were Culpeper's
Rebellion (1677), involving colonists angered by the english
Navigation Acts: and the Cary Rebellion (17080, brought about
by Quakers and other dissenters who refused to support the
established anglican church. in 1705, French huguenits from
Virginia established North Carolina's first permanent Settlement,
at Bath.
