Hannah Crafts wrote The Bondwoman's Narrative, an epic-like story of a slave's life in the South and eventual escape to the North.

Thirty years before the Wrights took flight at Kitty Hawk, an inventor in Murfreesboro, N.C., attempted his first flight off the top of a cotton gin.

Invented by Richard Jordan Gatling of Murfreesboro, N.C., the Gatling gun is the earliest iteration of the modern machine gun.

The Cowan Musuem is home to all sorts of nifty inventions, including a 7-in-1 kitchen tool. But, the museum's curators may need to reevaluate what the device actually is.

The Confederate ironclad ship CSS Neuse was built to protect Goldsboro and deter Union troops from moving inland, but it hardly saw battle.

The typewriter found aboard a sunken ship off the Outer Banks was wired to an Enigma, a machine used by Nazi Germany to cipher messages during WWII. Now, the typewriter is being painstakingly restored at the NC Maritime Museum after decades on the sea floor.

Fred the horse was a part of the New Bern Fire Department for 17 years. The well-trained horse became known for its ability to navigate the city almost entirely on its own.

After a Norwegian ship carrying bananas ran aground at Hatteras, residents there grew sick of eating them.

When you think of surfing, you probably think of Hawaii or California, but surfing has been popular in North Carolina since before all those '60s beach films.

Housed in a former federal courthouse and post office, the Imagination Station in downtown Wilson features some odd architectural choices — like a completely enclosed catwalk that only the postmaster could access.