1776    South Carolina becomes the first American colony to declare its independence from Great Britain and set up its own government.

1778    South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

1780    American Revolutionary War: Battle of Kings Mountain American Patriot militia defeat Loyalist irregulars led by British colonel Patrick Ferguson in South Carolina.

1788    South Carolina ratifies the Constitution as the 8th American state.

1832    President Andrew Jackson writes to Vice President Martin Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina's defiance of federal authority in the Nullification Crisis.

1856    Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas ("Bleeding Kansas").

1860    South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States.

1861    American Civil War: Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in seceding from the United States.

1863    American Civil War: Confederates evacuate Battery Wagner and Morris Island in South Carolina.

1870    Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the first black U.S. congressman.

1888    Thomas Green Clemson dies, bequeathing his estate to the State of South Carolina to establish Clemson Agricultural College.

1916    Child labor: In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from twelve to fourteen years old.

1989    Hurricane Hugo makes landfall in the U.S. state of South Carolina.

1995    In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet matriculated at The Citadel (she drops out less than a week later).