Explore America and discover people, places, art, and history that connect to South Carolina in the Smithsonian’s collections, held in trust for the American people. Revolutionary War hero William Moultrie successfully defended Sullivan’s Island at the entrance of Charles Town (now Charleston) harbor in a resounding defeat of the British Navy on June 28, 1776. South Carolina saw more than 200 battles and skirmishes during the American Revolution.
South Carolinian Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) is the seventh U.S. President. Confederate forces fired on U.S. Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, starting the Civil War. Robert Smalls was born into slavery in Beaufort in 1839. During the Civil War, he worked as an enslaved shipman on the CSS Planter in Charleston Harbor. On May 12, 1862, he, his fellow enslaved crew members, and family made a daring escape. They took the ship and turned it over to the U.S. Navy. Smalls later went on to serve five terms in Congress.
Charles Townes, born in Greenville, invented the maser, a precursor to the laser, in the 1950s. South Carolinians in the arts include Chadwick Boseman, who rose to fame playing Marvel Comics superhero T'Challa in the movie “Black Panther”; James Brown, known as the Godfather of Soul; and Dizzy Gillespie, a virtuoso jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and singer.