Aerial.America.S02E09.North.Carolina
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00:00North Carolina.
00:04It's one of America's original colonies,
00:08where humans took the first powered flight,
00:12and breathtaking beauty rings from the highest peaks in the East.
00:17It was here where America's most famous pirate met his fate.
00:21And a barrier island still holds the secrets of what may be the nation's oldest unsolved mystery.
00:29Aerial North Carolina journeys from the Outer Banks,
00:34across inland forests,
00:36to a mountain that's guided travelers for centuries.
00:41It was here where four brave students changed the course of history.
00:46Tobacco is king.
00:49And Confederate troops march through the pitch of pine forests.
00:53This is the Tar Heel State.
00:57North Carolina.
01:27Roanoke Island.
01:35Roanoke Island.
01:37It's the site of one of the greatest mysteries of the colonial era.
01:41North Carolina's lost colony.
01:45Native Americans inhabited this island as far back as 10,000 years ago.
01:51The first European to set foot here was Italian explorer Giovanni de Verrazzano,
01:56who was sent by France to chart America's Atlantic coastline in 1524.
02:04But it was England who first tried to establish a colony on this wild island.
02:10With Queen Elizabeth's blessing, Sir Walter Raleigh set a party in 1584
02:15to scout the Carolina coast for potential sites.
02:20When they saw Roanoke Island, they thought they'd found the perfect place.
02:26The weather was mild, and the rich soil abundant.
02:32So the following year, just over 100 men, scientists, painters, and explorers,
02:38landed here, eager to establish England's first foothold in America.
02:43This ship is a replica of the Elizabeth,
02:46one of the seven merchant vessels that delivered this band of hopeful settlers.
02:51Its passengers thought it would be a one-way trip, but things didn't go as planned.
02:57The men quickly ran out of supplies, clashed with Native Americans,
03:01and fled back to England just one year later.
03:05In 1587, a new group, 119 men, women, and children,
03:11tried to make another go at settling Roanoke Island.
03:16But when a supply ship arrived here three years later, they found a chilling sight.
03:21The entire colony had vanished.
03:26The settlers' houses had all been taken down,
03:29and their earthwork fort, which stood here, was deserted.
03:33The only clue left behind was the name of a nearby island,
03:37Croatan, carved into a wooden post.
03:42So what happened to North Carolina's notorious lost colony?
03:48Were they massacred by Native Americans?
03:51Or were they assimilated into a friendlier tribe on Croatan Island?
03:56The puzzle has fascinated historians for centuries, and the public too.
04:03Every summer night, here at the Waterside Theater,
04:06players reenact the tale in a performance called The Lost Colony.
04:11The colony is also commemorated at the island's Elizabethan Gardens,
04:16named for the monarch who sent the doomed settlers.
04:20A plaque at the entrance reads,
04:22From this hallowed ground they walked away through the dark forest into history.
04:28Some of the live oaks in this garden are over 400 years old,
04:33old enough to know the secret of what happened to the lost colony of North Carolina.
04:41Roanoke lies on North Carolina's Outer Banks,
04:44175 miles of barrier islands lined by long stretches of sandy beach.
04:51Millions of visitors flock here every year,
04:54drawn to the mild climate and surfside cottages.
04:59But life here is at the mercy of the mighty Atlantic.
05:04No beachfront structure is immune to the ocean's destructive force.
05:10Not even this house on Cape Hatteras,
05:13made famous in the 2008 movie Nights in Rodanthe.
05:18When this home, called Serendipity, was built in 1988,
05:22it stood 400 feet from the ocean.
05:25But constant pounding from storm waves has slowly eaten away the beach.
05:32The final blow came in November of 2009,
05:35when a powerful nor'easter nearly swallowed the house whole.
05:40The property was condemned and slated for demolition.
05:45At the 11th hour, a couple stepped in to save Serendipity,
05:49and are in the process of restoring it to its Hollywood glory.
05:57Nature's fury will continue to rage, but that won't keep tourists away.
06:03So the federal government has created the 30,000-acre Cape Hatteras National Seashore
06:09to help keep these beaches wild.
06:12The 75-mile stretch of coast is off-limits to developers
06:16and remains home to a rich diversity of wildlife.
06:20The Hatteras Seashore serves as a major avian migratory stop
06:24and provides crucial feeding and nesting grounds to nearly 400 bird species.
06:35At the southern tip of the National Seashore is a place with an ominous past.
06:43This is one of the most remote places in North Carolina,
06:47Ocracoke Island.
06:52The only way for most people to get here is by ferry.
06:56Its seclusion is what first drew settlers to the island,
07:00and later, one of America's most notorious outlaws.
07:04His name was Edward Teach, better known as the Pirate Blackbeard.
07:12Patrolling these waters on his ship, The Adventure,
07:15Blackbeard plundered the merchant vessels that passed through the Ocracoke Inlet,
07:19one of the busiest shipping waterways of the 18th century.
07:23And it was here, in 1718, where he met his fate,
07:27when a Royal Navy captain lured Blackbeard into an ambush,
07:31cut off his head, and dumped his body into the sound.
07:36Legend has it Blackbeard's ghost still roams Ocracoke Island,
07:41searching for his long-lost head.
07:49Fishermen and surfers alike are drawn to North Carolina's coast,
07:53but there is danger beneath these waters, especially for big ships.
07:59A treacherous 12-mile-long sandbar called Diamond Shoals lies just off the coast,
08:05conspiring with powerful ocean currents to pull ships to their demise.
08:11Well over a thousand vessels have gone down here,
08:14earning the area the nickname the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
08:25The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse has kept watch over these perilous waters since 1870.
08:32It took a hundred laborers and nearly one and a quarter million bricks to complete.
08:37Standing 210 feet, it's the tallest brick lighthouse in North America.
08:43Lighthouse keepers were originally housed in the frame buildings nearby.
08:48From the top of the tower, they'd carefully stand watch over the lamp all through the night.
08:53That is, until 1934, when the light went electric.
08:59On a clear night, the beacon can be seen by sailors 20 nautical miles out at sea.
09:08Today, this town north of Cape Hatteras is a humming surfside community.
09:14At the turn of the 20th century, Kitty Hawk wasn't much more than just a place to go fishing,
09:20but two brothers saw its open space and soft dunes as the perfect spot to experiment with their flying machines.
09:29Wilbur and Orville Wright, who ran a bicycle shop in Ohio, spent their winters down here.
09:35In wooden shacks like these, they lived humbly and worked on a series of primitive gliders.
09:41In the winter of 1903, they were finally prepared to take to the air in an engine-powered craft.
09:48On December 14th, after a coin toss, Wilbur won the privilege of piloting their new Wright Flyer down this path.
09:56But instead of catching air, he oversteered the plane, which dove into the sand before it could take off.
10:03Three days later, Orville was in the pilot seat for his short but historic flight.
10:10For 12 incredible seconds, at this exact location, human flight went from fantasy to reality.
10:20The Wright's Flyer traveled just 120 feet, but its impact was felt around the world.
10:28In the distance on Big Kill Devil Hill stands the 60-foot Wright Brothers Monument.
10:34Dedicated in 1932, it bears the inscription,
10:38In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright,
10:43conceived by genius, achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith.
10:58Behind North Carolina's barrier islands, a very different landscape emerges.
11:06This is Bull Neck Swamp.
11:11It used to be logging territory when timber companies exploited its forest for Atlantic white cedar.
11:19Salvation came in 1996 when Carolina State University purchased the parcel for use as a wetlands research site.
11:28Today, the Bull Neck Swamp Research Forest also serves as a refuge for animal species like coyotes, black bears, and white-tailed deer.
11:49About 75 miles southwest of the swamp lies the second oldest city in North Carolina, New Bern.
11:58Named after the capital of Switzerland, it was first settled by Swiss and German immigrants in the early 1700s, in the earliest days of the colony.
12:08It was here where William Tryon, Royal Governor of North Carolina at the time, decided to build a permanent capital.
12:15He called it Tryon Palace.
12:18Completed in 1770, the elaborate Georgian-style mansion served as both a government building and as Tryon's personal residence,
12:27though the colonists weren't too happy about paying higher taxes so their governor could live in opulence.
12:34Ultimately, Tryon only got to live in his palace for a year before he was made governor of New York and moved away.
12:41After the Revolution, the palace served for several years as the state capital of an independent North Carolina.
12:48And then, after the state capital had moved to Raleigh, the original palace went up in flames.
12:55This house is a replica built in the 1950s from the architect's original plans.
13:01New palace gardens were also designed.
13:04Covering more than 16 acres, they include three centuries of North Carolina plants.
13:18By the mid-19th century, the port city of New Bern had grown into the second largest city on the North Carolina coast, a strategic target for the North during the Civil War.
13:29In early 1862, Union General Ambrose Burnside marched decisively into town, overpowered the woefully unprepared Confederate troops, and occupied New Bern for the remainder of the war.
13:44Several decades after the war's end, New Bern became the birthplace of an American icon.
13:50Here on Middle Street, a young druggist named Caleb Bradham opened a small pharmacy with a soda fountain that served a unique combination of carbonated water, sugar, vanilla, cola nuts, and pepsin.
14:03He named it Pepsi-Cola.
14:07When North Carolina's statesmen decided to move the capital away from New Bern, they chose a spot very different from the bustling city on the coast.
14:16In 1792, the state legislature sent a committee on a mission to scout sites for a new capital.
14:23At the time, Raleigh, in the state's Piedmont region, was nothing but a lonely wasteland.
14:28But State Senator Joel Lane had a thousand-acre plantation for sale here, and he was a terrific salesman.
14:36He graciously took the committee members to a local tavern, where they indulged in a popular libation called Cherry Bounce.
14:44Legend has it that they didn't realize until the next morning that they had agreed to buy Lane's property.
14:49The new capital was named after Sir Walter Raleigh, who had sent the first colonists to North Carolina in the 16th century.
14:57The city itself was modeled after Philadelphia, which at the time was the capital of the United States.
15:04In the middle of the city, a splendid Greek Revival dome crowns a building more than 170 years old, the North Carolina State Capitol.
15:15Its great portico and massive columns are a symbol of the city's long history.
15:20It was built in the late 17th century, when the city was the capital of the United States.
15:25It was built in the late 17th century, when the city was the capital of the United States.
15:30Its great portico and massive columns were all carved from locally quarried granite.
15:36To get the giant slabs to the building site, engineers developed a special wooden track railway with mule-drawn cars.
15:45The first stone went into place in the summer of 1833, and the building was completed seven years later.
15:53Inside these walls, in 1861, after a heated debate, state legislators made the most important decision of their careers, voting in favor of secession.
16:05The decision was met with great celebration. A 100-round artillery salute rang out over the Capitol grounds.
16:12But the festivities were short-lived.
16:16Just four years later, the Union Army stormed into town, defeated the Confederates, and occupied Raleigh.
16:24The Southern Capitol was never the same again.
16:33Modern-day Raleigh is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, thanks in large part to the work going on here at Research Triangle Park.
16:42Founded in 1959, RTP is a 7,000-acre campus where researchers, policymakers, and businesses collaborate on all kinds of scientific and high-tech research.
16:553D ultrasound technology was developed here, as well as the groundbreaking HIV-AIDS drug AZT.
17:03Modern architecture may sprawl through Raleigh's high-tech hubs, but neighborhoods like historic Oakwood, with its well-preserved Victorian buildings, seem to be straight from the 19th century.
17:15It wasn't that long ago that this neighborhood was in disrepair.
17:19After World War II, middle-class families began fleeing the city for the suburbs, abandoning their once-fashionable homes.
17:26But in the early 1970s, the tide began to turn back, and a few renovations inspired a wave of neighborhood revitalization.
17:41Locals call the area between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill the Triangle.
17:48These aren't just the biggest cities in the area.
17:50They're also home to three prominent universities—North Carolina State, Duke, and the University of North Carolina.
17:59Each school has different academic strengths, but they all share one thing in common.
18:04Within the last 30 years, each has won the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship at least once.
18:11Duke University, formerly known as Trinity College, was born in rural Randolph County in the mid-19th century.
18:19Then, in 1892, a wealthy tobacco farmer named Washington Duke offered up $85,000 to have the college moved here, to Durham.
18:29He considered this city an emblem of the progressive New South, and a much more fitting place for the growing school.
18:37In the 1920s, Duke's son James continued in his father's footsteps, providing the $19 million that Trinity College needed to expand into a university.
18:46The school was renamed Duke University.
18:49When designs were being drawn up for the new campus, James Duke chose the highest ridge for the Duke University Chapel.
18:57It was the first building planned, but the last one finished in 1935.
19:03James Duke chose the highest ridge for the Duke University Chapel.
19:08It was the first building planned, but the last one finished in 1935.
19:13Topped by a 210-foot-high tower, the chapel has 77 stained-glass windows, three pipe organs, and seating for more than 1,500 people.
19:24Today, the seed that Washington Duke planted has grown into one of the country's leading universities,
19:31with over 200 buildings spread across a thickly forested, 8,000-acre campus.
19:36Like many cities in North Carolina, Durham was built on the back of tobacco.
19:42It even earned its nickname, Bull City, from the name of a smoking tobacco known as Bull Durham.
19:49At baseball parks, the company advertised its tobacco on giant bull-shaped signs.
19:55It was the first tobacco factory in North Carolina.
19:59At baseball parks, the company advertised its tobacco on giant bull-shaped signs placed above the outfield fences,
20:07right next to the spot where relief pitchers warmed up.
20:11That's how baseball got the term, bullpen.
20:16A few miles north of Durham stands the Duke family homestead.
20:21It was here, in this ramshackle barn, that young Washington Duke first started a tobacco business
20:26that would one day grow into the American Tobacco Company, once the largest tobacco company in the world.
20:34Tobacco has long been a part of North Carolina's economic history.
20:40In the 1700s, bundles of it were used as currency.
20:44Today, it remains the state's number one export crop.
20:49But it wasn't always North Carolina's top commodity.
20:53Beginning in the 1800s, cotton was king, and it reigned for nearly a hundred years.
21:01But by the 1920s, the tiny cotton-eating bull weevil beetle that had been plaguing the South
21:07finally arrived in North Carolina and devoured the state's cotton industry.
21:12Then, in 1978, cotton finally made a comeback.
21:16The state was the site of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's pilot experiment to eradicate bull weevils,
21:22and North Carolina cotton has been on the rise ever since.
21:31Chapel Hill is the third point on the North Carolina Triangle,
21:35and home to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
21:39the first public university in the country.
21:41When it opened its doors in 1795, there were only two professors and 41 students.
21:48Total enrollment today is nearly 30,000.
21:53Campus lore says that students who drink from this well on the first day of class
21:58will enjoy straight A's and good fortune for the rest of the year.
22:02A century ago, it served a more utilitarian purpose
22:06as the sole source of drinking water for the school dorms.
22:09During the Civil War, the University of North Carolina kept its doors open,
22:14calling on wounded warriors to teach its classes.
22:18Silent Sam stands as a monument to those students who joined the Confederate Army
22:23and as a memorial to those 321 alumni who paid the ultimate price.
22:29He's said to be silent because, even though he has a rifle, he's carrying no ammunition.
22:35Nearby, rising 172 feet, the Moorhead-Patterson Bell Tower chimes every hour,
22:42a helpful reminder for any absent-minded professor who may have forgotten to watch.
22:57Viewing North Carolina from on high,
22:59longleaf pine forests seem to dominate the landscape.
23:03But these days, this native species is far less abundant than it used to be.
23:12Today, a major conservation effort is underway to restore North Carolina's pines.
23:22These trees don't just make for a pretty view,
23:24their natural strength and drought resistance could help bolster this landscape in the face of global climate change.
23:35Set amongst these trees is another emblematic North Carolina landscape.
23:40Only this one was created by people.
23:45Golf may have been born in Scotland, but North Carolinians have adopted it as their own.
23:50There are 43 courses here in Moore County alone.
23:54The first of these was Pinehurst Resort.
23:57It was the brainchild of Boston-born soda fountain magnate James Walker Tufts.
24:04Back in 1895, he purchased nearly 6,000 acres of this land for a little over a dollar an acre.
24:11He built two hotels, first the Hawley Inn, and the Hawley Inn Hotel.
24:16He built two hotels, first the Hawley Inn, and then the Carolina,
24:21with a master plan of developing a peaceful retreat far from the air pollution of the cities.
24:27But when his guests took it upon themselves to start pelting little white balls into the surrounding cow pastures,
24:33Tufts decided to build a proper golf course.
24:36His resort turned into a golf mecca.
24:40Pinehurst has hosted golf's most legendary icons.
24:43From Ben Hogan to Payne Stewart to Tiger Woods.
24:48But Woods would not always have been welcome here.
24:55After the Civil War, the American South enacted Jim Crow laws,
25:00which mandated that blacks and whites be separated in almost all facets of public life.
25:07At the time, the seats at this Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro
25:11were for whites only.
25:14Blacks could eat here, but only standing up.
25:17That is, until four black students decided to challenge the rules.
25:26David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., and Joseph McNeil
25:32were from the nearby North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University,
25:36one of several historically black colleges in the state.
25:40On February 1, 1960, they sat down at the Woolworth's lunch counter and asked for a cup of coffee.
25:48They were refused service, but returned day after day with the same request,
25:54and each time with more and more supporters sitting by their side.
25:58The movement exploded.
26:01Within just a few months, it had spread to 54 cities nationwide.
26:06Woolworth's finally bowed to the pressure in July of 1960
26:11and decided to desegregate its lunch counters.
26:14The dream of the Greensboro Four had become a reality for a nation.
26:19A portion of the original lunch counter is on exhibit
26:23at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
26:27Winston-Salem, North Carolina, lies roughly 25 miles west of Greensboro.
26:33It's a headquarters for Big Tobacco, but it got its start here, in Old Salem Village,
26:39which offers a glimpse of early European life in the state.
26:45Old Salem was originally settled by Moravian immigrants as far back as 1766.
26:51Their influence can be seen in the city's history books.
26:54Their influence can be seen in the architecture of the village's historic buildings.
27:01Today, this 100-acre village is considered one of the most well-preserved historical sites in the United States.
27:16Twenty miles northwest of Winston-Salem,
27:19the remnants of the ancient Sorratown Mountains still reach for the sky.
27:24At their heart, Pilot Mountain.
27:27A Native American tribe called the Saura once inhabited this land
27:32and called the mountain Jomioki, which means Great Guide or Pilot.
27:38True to its name, this mighty peak has served as a guidepost to generations of travelers passing this way.
27:48Pilot Mountain State Park, established in 1968, is a favorite destination for hikers.
27:54But the mountain itself may be better known as the backdrop of native son Andy Griffith's 1960s TV show.
28:06In the shadow of Pilot Mountain sits the town of Mount Airy, North Carolina,
28:11the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry on the Andy Griffith Show.
28:17Griffith lived here through the 1940s,
28:19when Mount Airy was home to a thriving economy built on granite quarrying, tobacco farming, and furniture making.
28:27By the 1980s, the factories had fallen quiet and the mills had closed.
28:34Desperate to keep their town alive, locals turned to tourism as a source of income.
28:39And of course, they began playing up their connection to the fictional world of Mayberry.
28:44Certain places mentioned in the show still exist in town, like the Snappy Lunch restaurant.
28:51Andy Griffith long denied any connection between Mount Airy and Mayberry.
28:56But after a 45-year absence, the actor returned here for a visit in 2003
29:01and finally acknowledged with a grin that his hometown may have inspired Mayberry after all.
29:14Leaving the state's towns and cities behind is the Blue Ridge Parkway.
29:22This highway was built as part of a New Deal program meant to keep people working during the worst of times.
29:28But in the process, the government created a thing of beauty.
29:33Stretching through the Shenandoah National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains,
29:37the parkway's 469 miles, rolling from peak to valley, are some of the most scenic in the state.
29:44As it winds high up into the Appalachians,
29:47the parkway passes old pioneer farmsteads and snow-dusted mountain meadows.
29:58North Carolina's Black Mountains claim the tallest peaks east of the Mississippi River.
30:03They aren't actually black. It's the evergreen forests that dominate the range that give them their dark appearance.
30:11The identity of North Carolina's highest peak was once the source of great debate.
30:17Standing more than 6,000 feet tall,
30:20Mount Mitchell is named for the man who settled that question once and for all.
30:25In the early 1800s, Grandfather Mountain was said to be the highest mountain in the state.
30:30But Dr. Elijah Mitchell, a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, disagreed.
30:37After an elaborate series of calculations using barometric pressure readings,
30:42he declared this peak, not Grandfather, to be the tallest.
30:46But his claim was disputed by a U.S. senator, so Mitchell took to the mountain again for more measurements.
30:53This expedition was his last.
30:55Along the way, he slipped and fell into a waterfall, was knocked unconscious, and drowned.
31:01He was later buried on the peak, and the mountain was named Mount Mitchell in his honor.
31:07Mitchell was ultimately right.
31:10This is the highest peak in the eastern United States.
31:17A few miles away lies Burnett Reservoir.
31:21A few miles away lies Burnett Reservoir,
31:25a lake dammed in 1954 to provide the people of nearby Asheville with drinking water.
31:33Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Asheville has become a popular resort town and artist's colony.
31:40But in earlier days, it was Asheville's cool summers and fresh mountain air that drew the crowds.
31:46They were said to be the perfect treatment for tuberculosis.
31:54Author F. Scott Fitzgerald bought into the claims of the mountain's restorative powers.
32:00A known hypochondriac, Fitzgerald came to Asheville's Grove Park in 1935
32:06with the hopes of curing his self-diagnosed case of tuberculosis.
32:10But Fitzgerald spent less time taking in the mountain air than he did indulging in local booze and women.
32:17He continued his gallivanting even after his wife Zelda had been admitted to Asheville's Highland Mental Hospital.
32:25But during his stay at Grove Park, Fitzgerald seemed to be coming undone.
32:30After firing a revolver in his room in a half-hearted suicide attempt,
32:34he had to be accompanied by a private nurse whenever he was on the property.
32:40Fitzgerald moved back to Hollywood, but poor Zelda died here in Asheville after a fire broke out at the mental hospital.
32:48The Grove Park Inn is still operating to this day and proudly displays photographs of Fitzgerald
32:55alongside those of its many other famous guests.
32:57During America's Gilded Age, Asheville was also a popular getaway spot for America's richest industrialists,
33:04including the Edisons, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts, some of whom built country homes here.
33:11One of them is the largest private house in the United States.
33:16It was built in the late 19th century and was the home of several of the world's richest industrialists.
33:22One of them is the largest private house in the United States.
33:30The Biltmore Estate was constructed in the 1890s by 26-year-old George Washington Vanderbilt,
33:36grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the famous New York railroad tycoon.
33:43With virtually unlimited resources at his disposal, Vanderbilt's French Renaissance-style estate took more than six years to build.
33:52And with such a massive undertaking, it required its own brick-making factory and a private railway for delivering materials.
34:01The finished 250-room mansion has 34 bedrooms and 43 bathrooms.
34:08When it came to designing the Biltmore's grounds, George Vanderbilt hired the best of the best,
34:14Frederick Olmsted, the landscape architect who created New York's Central Park.
34:20Olmsted designed formal gardens close to the house,
34:25but he also regenerated forest areas around the estate by transplanting trees and encouraging new growth.
34:32It was one of the country's very first forest conservation projects.
34:41During the Great Depression, Asheville's tourist trade was in decline,
34:45so the Vanderbilt family agreed to open the Biltmore for public tours.
34:50Today, the estate is visited by more than a million people a year.
35:03While the Biltmore was under construction,
35:06George Vanderbilt began acquiring acreage around the property to use as a private hunting retreat.
35:12This is just one of the parcels he bought, Mount Pisgah.
35:25Logging here had cut wide gashes into the landscape,
35:29but Vanderbilt hired foresters to manage the land and bring this forest back to life.
35:36One of these, German-born Karl Schenk, went on to establish the Biltmore Forest School,
35:43the first of its kind in the United States.
35:46In 1914, the U.S. government bought 87,000 acres of this land from his estate
35:52and turned it into the Pisgah National Forest.
35:57It's best known as the home to Cold Mountain,
36:00the title of the best-selling civil war epic.
36:03The Biltmore Forest School was the first of its kind in the United States.
36:07The Biltmore Forest School was the first of its kind in the United States.
36:10It's best known as the home to Cold Mountain,
36:13the title of the best-selling civil war novel written by Asheville native Charles Frazier
36:19and later adapted into a film by Anthony Minghella.
36:32Straddling the North Carolina-Tennessee border is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,
36:37the most visited national park in America.
36:42These great giants were formed some 200 to 300 million years ago.
36:48They are at least three times older than the Rockies.
36:52The Cherokee, who once made their home here,
36:55called this mountain range the Place of Blue Smoke
36:59because of the haze that regularly envelops the mountaintops.
37:03Lumber companies rolled in at the beginning of the 20th century
37:07and nearly destroyed these forests for good,
37:10chopping down two-thirds of the trees in just 20 years.
37:16Thanks to widespread protests against clear-cutting,
37:19Congress turned this land into a national park in 1934.
37:25Since then, the Smoky Mountain forests have rebounded well
37:28and now support nearly 400 animal species.
37:41While the state's coast and mountains are known for their unspoiled beauty,
37:46a world away stands Charlotte, the biggest city in North Carolina.
37:55Named for Prince Charlotte of Mecklenburg,
37:58King George III's wife,
38:00this has been a bustling town ever since the late 1700s
38:04when the first gold nugget ever found in the U.S. was discovered nearby.
38:09During the late 20th century,
38:11Charlotte transformed itself from a sleepy textile manufacturing town
38:16into a slick financial services hub,
38:18the country's second-largest after New York.
38:22Rising 60 stories, the Bank of America Corporate Center,
38:25completed in 1992,
38:27isn't just the tallest building on the Charlotte skyline,
38:30it's the tallest in the entire state.
38:33All of the high-rises here are a reminder of Charlotte's business prowess.
38:39But one of the town's most important industries is good old-fashioned car racing.
38:47NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing,
38:52is headquartered in Florida,
38:53but it calls Charlotte its hometown.
38:57Three-quarters of its employees are based in or around the city.
39:01Today, NASCAR is America's fastest-growing sport,
39:05second only to the NFL when it comes to TV viewers.
39:10And fans come here,
39:12to the Charlotte Motor Speedway,
39:14just north of the city.
39:17Built in 1959,
39:19the speedway has emerged as a leading NASCAR racetrack.
39:23Nine out of ten NASCAR teams are based close by,
39:27thrilling sell-out crowds with their exhilarating speed.
39:36Just 20 miles away,
39:38the town of Kannapolis celebrates the sport of auto racing in a quieter way.
39:43This is the hometown of legendary driver Dale Earnhardt,
39:47and it was here that he first developed the aggressive driving techniques
39:50that later earned him the nickname,
39:52The Intimidator.
39:57Earnhardt was killed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500
40:02when his car smashed into a concrete retaining wall at 160 miles an hour.
40:07In his memory,
40:09Kannapolis renamed its major thoroughfare Dale Earnhardt Boulevard
40:13and erected a nine-foot-tall bronze statue in his honor.
40:16There are seven steps descending into the racetrack-shaped plaza,
40:20each representing one of the seven championships Earnhardt won
40:24over his brilliant career.
40:38Set on the Cape Fear River,
40:40just 20 miles from the Atlantic Ocean,
40:42Wilmington, North Carolina,
40:43is also known as Port City.
40:48During the Civil War,
40:50Wilmington played a critical role for the Confederate Army.
40:54Fort Fisher, nicknamed the Gibraltar of the Confederacy,
40:58guarded over the port,
41:00which was part of a key supply route to Confederate troops stationed inland.
41:06On January 15, 1865,
41:09Union troops attacked from the sea,
41:10and defeated the fort.
41:16The loss of this vital supply route
41:18contributed to the South's imminent surrender.
41:32Moored just across the river from downtown
41:35is the USS North Carolina.
41:36When this ship was first launched
41:38from the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn in 1940,
41:41she was considered one of the greatest weapons
41:43in the Navy's arsenal.
41:45The first of ten high-speed battleships built for World War II,
41:49her main job was to protect aircraft carriers from enemy attack.
41:55It took more than 2,000 sailors to operate the ship.
42:00The USS North Carolina
42:02was the first of its kind.
42:04The USS North Carolina served nobly during the war,
42:08sailing over 300,000 miles
42:10and seeing action in every major Pacific battle,
42:13including Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal.
42:18On six occasions,
42:20the Japanese claimed to have sunk this ship,
42:22but she skirted disaster every time,
42:25though she did survive plenty of near-misses,
42:28including a collision with a Japanese torpedo in 1942.
42:31All told, she only lost ten men during the entire war.
42:39The USS North Carolina was decommissioned in June 1947
42:43and scheduled to be turned into scrap metal.
42:47But the people of North Carolina wouldn't hear of it.
42:50Thanks to a statewide campaign,
42:52the ship was saved
42:54and brought to its new home here in Wilmington in 1961.
43:01But there's much more to Wilmington than its military history.
43:06It's also known for its picturesque coast.
43:10This stretch of sand called Holden Beach
43:13looks much as it has for the last 50 years.
43:17Offshore,
43:19shrimp boats head home with the day's catch.
43:24It's no wonder this coast has drawn the attention of Hollywood's cameras.
43:28Movie watchers might recognize this very beach
43:31in the background of a film or TV show.
43:35More than 400 motion pictures and television shows
43:38have been produced in Wilmington,
43:40including Blue Velvet,
43:42Forrest Gump,
43:44and The Hudsucker Proxy.
43:49Movie producer Frank Capra Jr.
43:52was so smitten with this area of North Carolina,
43:54he talked his friend, the late Italian filmmaker Dino De Laurentiis,
43:58into building a studio here.
44:05Their company, Screen Gem Studios,
44:08remains one of the largest TV and movie production companies
44:11outside of Hollywood.
44:19From its sunlit outer banks,
44:21where pirates once ruled,
44:23to dark inland forests,
44:25and a rocky peak that's guided travelers for centuries,
44:32North Carolina by air
44:34is a chance to understand the compelling history
44:37of one of America's first colonies.
44:41From stories of its earliest inhabitants,
44:45and the Europeans who tried to settle its shores,
44:48to the most famous of all,
44:49to the Americans who tried to settle its shores,
44:52to the four civil rights heroes
44:54who dared to challenge its rules,
44:57today, North Carolina
44:59is home to enduring mystery,
45:02giant industry,
45:05and famous institutions
45:07that may be this southern state's
45:09greatest legacy of all.
45:19North Carolina
45:21is home to enduring mystery,
45:23giant industry,
45:25and famous institutions
45:27that may be this southern state's
45:29greatest legacy of all.
45:31North Carolina
45:33is home to enduring mystery,
45:35giant industry,
45:37and famous institutions
45:39that may be this southern state's
45:41greatest legacy of all.
45:43North Carolina
45:45is home to enduring mystery,
45:47giant industry,
45:49and famous institutions
45:51that may be this southern state's
45:53greatest legacy of all.