Angel Oak Tree, Johns Island, South Carolina (© Haraldur Stefansson/Alamy)

【May 23 2014】Not even Hurricane Hugo in 1989 could fell the Angel Oak, a massive old southern live oak tree in South Carolina. Though the Angel Oak is on Johns Island, it's so close to Charleston that visitors to the city will often make their way over to see for themselves the tree's sprawling limbs. The 66.5-foot-tall tree was perhaps already a couple centuries old when South Carolina became a state 226 years ago today. Some tests have suggested the Angel Oak could have started growing as many as 1,500 years ago. Recently, planned development in the nearby forest has prompted many protests from locals, who formed the group Save the Angel Oak, in order to challenge the construction of an apartment complex just 160 yards from the tree.Explore breathtaking Gallery from the HuluTrip homepage over the past 5 years..