8 Insane Things That Happened In South Carolina You Won't Find In History Books

Furthermore, it seems Thurmond hired them both as his personal secretaries before proposing. Coincidentally, both women were 22 when they married Thurmond; he was 44 at the time of his first marriage and 66 at the time of his second marriage. Also notable, Thurmond was a judge in the Miss SC contest in which the woman who became his first wife didn't win. His second wife, Miss Nancy Moore from Aiken, DID win Miss South Carolina, but Thurmond was not a judge and they weren't married or even dating at the time.

This photo is representative and not an actual image from either Miss South Carolina contest.

Puerto Rico moved a colony of 1,400 rhesus monkeys that were reportedly infected with the Herpes B virus to South Carolina's Morgan Island, north of Beaufort where research was conducted. The colony of monkeys has grown over the years to more than 3,000 at last count. Morgan Island is home to one of only two rhesus monkey colonies in the U.S. The other is on the Silver River in Florida.

According to Wikipedia, there's a record of a shipment of golf equipment to a William Wallace, of Charleston, in 1739. The South Carolina Golf Club was established in Charleston in 1787.

The Carolina Panthers logo was designed to mirror an upside down image of the outline of BOTH Carolina states.

In 1915, South Carolina's 90th Governor, Coleman Blease, walked out on the State of South Carolina just five days before the end of his second term, leaving the Lt. Governor to fill his shoes for five days.

This unfortunate incident - known as the 1958 Mars Bluff B 47 Nuclear Weapon Loss happened in SC when a series of mishaps on board the plane carrying the bomb resulted in the emergency pin getting dislodged. The bomb broke free, falling through the plane's floor and nosediving 14,000 feet to the Palmetto State. The impact damaged several buildings and created a crater 75-feet across and 35-feet deep. Most notably though, the impact injured six people. They sued the government and were collectively awarded a whopping $54,000.