[6] Wilmington's residential area lies between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean, and the city developed as a commercial port in the colonial era.

Numerous movies and television series—in a range of genres—have been filmed/produced in or near the city, including The Black Phone, Blue Velvet, The Conjuring, The Crow (1994), Dawson's Creek, Eastbound & Down, Halloween Kills, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Iron Man 3, One Tree Hill, Outer Banks,[24][25] Scream (2022), The Summer I Turned Pretty, Super Mario Bros., and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

[30] In the early 16th century, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, commissioned by the king of France with a French crew, was reportedly the first European to see this area, including the city's present site.

[30] In September 1732, a community was founded on land owned by John Watson on the Cape Fear River, at the confluence of its northwest and northeast branches.

As the indentured servants gained their freedom and fewer could be persuaded to travel to North America because of improving conditions back home, the settlers imported an increasing number of slaves to satisfy the labor demand.

When the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act the following year, designed to raise revenue for the Crown with a kind of tax on shipping, Wilmington was the site of an elaborate demonstration against it.

[37] On October 19, 1765, several hundred townspeople gathered in protest of the new law, burned an effigy of one town resident who favored the act, and toasted to "Liberty, Property, and No Stamp Duty."

When Houston visited Wilmington on business, still unaware of his appointment, he recounted, "The Inhabitants immediately assembled about me & demanded a Categorical Answer whether I intended to put the Act relating [to] the Stamps in force.

For the sake of his own life, and "to quiet the Minds of the inraged [sic] and furious Mobb...," Houston resigned his position at the courthouse.

The barrels were broken open, letting the punch spill into the streets; they threw the head of the ox into the pillory, and gave its body to the enslaved population.

Each ship provided signed statements from the collectors at their respective ports of origin that no were stamps available, but Captain Jacob Lobb of the British cruiser Viper seized the vessels.

The following day, as many as a thousand men, including the mayor and aldermen of Wilmington, were led by Cornelius Harnett to Brunswick to confront Tryon.

When Raleigh citizens declined to subscribe in sufficient number to stock to raise money for the project, organizers changed the terminus to Weldon.

During the Civil War, the port was the major base for Confederate and privately owned blockade runners, which delivered badly needed supplies from England.

The city was captured by Union forces in the Battle of Wilmington in February 1865, about one month after the fall of Fort Fisher had closed the port.

[53] At the time, Black people accounted for over 30% of Wilmington's skilled craftsmen, such as mechanics, carpenters, jewelers, watchmakers, painters, plasterers, plumbers, stevedores, blacksmiths, masons, and wheelwrights.

Lastly, two brothers, Alexander and Frank Manly, owned the Wilmington Daily Record, the only Black-owned newspaper in the state, and one of the few in the country at that time.

Violence increased around elections in this period, as armed White paramilitary insurgents, known as Red Shirts, worked to suppress Black and Republican voting.

A smaller contingent of prisoners was assigned to a third site, working in the officers' mess and doing groundskeeping at Bluethenthal Army Air Base, which is now Wilmington International Airport.

[64][65][66] In 2017, a chemical compound called GenX, discharged by a Chemours plant near Fayetteville, North Carolina, was first found to be present in the Cape Fear River; a major water source for the region.

Abandoned warehouses on downtown's northern end have been recently demolished making room for multimillion dollar projects, such as what was the world headquarters of Pharmaceutical Product Development and current tallest building in Wilmington at 228 feet (69 m).

[81][82]) Other completed projects include a state-of-the-art convention center, Live Oak Bank Pavilion, Pier 33 Apartments, and The Cove houseboat community in Port City Marina.

Wilmington's industrial base includes electrical, medical, electronic and telecommunications equipment; clothing and apparel; food processing; paper products; nuclear fuel; and pharmaceuticals.

For more than half a century, the Hannah Block Historic USO Building has facilitated the coming together of generations, providing children with programs that challenge them creatively, and enhance the quality of life for residents throughout the region.

The Wilmington Conservatory of Fine Arts is the only studio in the region to offer Progressing Ballet Technique[103] instruction from two certified instructors.

Popular television series like[27] Matlock (1986–1995), Dawson's Creek (1998–2003), One Tree Hill (2003–2012), Eastbound & Down (2009–2013), Sleepy Hollow (2013–2017), Under the Dome (2013–2015), Outer Banks (2020–present),[24][25] and The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022–present) were partially or fully filmed at the studio complex and on location throughout the city.

Movies partially or fully shot in or near Wilmington include[26] Firestarter (1984), Blue Velvet (1986), Maximum Overdrive (1986), Weekend at Bernie's (1989), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Super Mario Bros. (1993), Radioland Murders (1994), The Crow (1994),[105] I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), The Conjuring (2013), Iron Man 3 (2013), Safe Haven (2013), We're the Millers (2013),[106] The Black Phone (2021), Halloween Kills (2021), and Scream (2022).

The Star-News is Wilmington's daily newspaper; read widely throughout the Lower Cape Fear region and now owned by Gannett, following its merger with the Star's previous owner, GateHouse Media.

On September 8, 2008, at noon, WWAY, WECT, WSFX, WILM-LP and W51CW all turned off their analog signals, making Wilmington the first market in the nation to go digital-only as part of a test by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to iron out transition and reception concerns before the nationwide shutoff.

The city's Union Station last had passenger train service in 1968 with the Seaboard Coast Line's predecessor version of the Palmetto.