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University of Georgia founded
The University of Georgia was incorporated by an act of the General Assembly on January 27, 1785, Georgia became the first state to charter a state-supported university. In 1784 the General Assembly had set aside 40,000 acres of land to endow a college or seminary of learning.The university was actually established in 1801 when a committee of the board of trustees selected a land site. -
Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin
In 1794, Eli Whitney (1765-1825) patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. Despite its success, the gin made little money for Whitney due to patent-infringement issues. -
Yazoo Land Fraud
The Yazoo land fraud was one of the most significant events in the post–Revolutionary War history of Georgia. The Yazoo sale of 1795 did much to shape Georgia politics and to strain relations with the federal government. Yazoo land fraud, was a scheme by which Georgia legislators were bribed in 1795 to sell most of the land now making up Mississippi (then a part of Georgia's western claims) to four land companies for the sum of $500,000, far below its potential market value. -
Capital moved to Louisville
Louisville, the county seat of Jefferson County, also served as Georgia's third capital from 1796 until 1807. The town grew as the result of both large-scale immigration to the Georgia upcountry after the American Revolution (1775-83) and the desire of many Georgians to enhance the state's commercial prosperity. By the mid-1780s the upcountry settlers outnumbered those in the coastal counties, and upcountry legislators demanded a state capital in a more western location than Savannah. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was an effort by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to maintain a balance of power between the slaveholding states and free states. The slaveholding states feared that if they became outnumbered in Congressional representation that they would lack the power to protect their interests in property and trade. -
Dahlonega Gold Rush
No matter who made the gold discovery in 1828, the gold rush started in 1829 in Lumpkin County and began spreading rapidly. By 1830 most gold was being mined. -
Worcester V. Georgia
Samuel Worcester, a missionary, defied Georgia through peaceful means to protest the state's handling of Cherokee lands. He was arrested several times as a result. With a team of lawyers, Worcester filed a lawsuit against the state that went all the way to the Supreme Court, where he finally won his case.In the court case Worcester v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 1832 that the Cherokee Indians constituted a nation holding district sovereign powers. -
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Trail of Tears
In 1838 and 1839 U.S. troops, prompted by the state of Georgia, expelled the Cherokee Indians from their ancestral homeland in the Southeast and removed them to the Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. The soldiers rounded up as many Cherokees as they could and marched the captives, led by John Ross, to the Indian Territory. Many died on the way so it was name the Trail of Tears. -
Election of 1840
President Van Buren was very unpopular by the time the election of 1840 neared. Van Buren was blamed for the depression that followed the Panic of 1837. Clay, however, was a Mason. Strong anti-mason feeling was strong enough to block his nomination. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 overturned the Missouri Compromise and left the overall issue of slavery unsettled. Although each side received benefits, the north seemed to gain the most. The balance of the Senate was now with the free states. -
Georgia Platform
With the nation facing the potential threat of disunion over the passage of the Compromise of 1850, Georgia, in a special state convention, adopted a proclamation called the Georgia Platform. The act was instrumental in averting a national crisis. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 may have been the single most significant event leading to the Civil War.The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed each territory to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty. Opposition was intense, but ultimately the bill passed in May of 1854. -
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Union Blockade of Georgia
In Georgia, Union strategy centered on Savannah, the state's most important port city. Beyond Savannah, Union forces generally focused on securing bases of operation on outlying coastal islands to counter Confederate privateers. Confederate defensive strategy, in turn, evolved with the Union blockade. -
Battle of Antietam
Also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, it was fought on September 17, 1862. Maj. Gen. McClellan and his Union Army of the Potomac confronted Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Sharpsburg, Maryland. This hard-fought battle, which drove Lee’s forces from Maryland, Antietam Bridgewould give Lincoln the “victory” that he needed before delivering the Emancipation Proclamation. -
Emancipation Proclamation
When the American Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln carefully framed the conflict as concerning the preservation of the Union rather than the abolition of slavery. But by mid-1862, as thousands of slaves fled to join the invading Northern armies. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg was one of the most crucial battles of the Civil War. What began as a chance encounter quickly turned into a desperate, ferocious battle. The Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, sometimes referred to as the "High Water Mark of the Rebellion" resulted in an end to the hopes of the Confederate States of America for independence. -
Battle of Chickamuga
The Battle of Chickamauga in North Georgia not far from Chattanooga, Tennessee, was the largest battle fought in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. It is second only to the Battle of Gettysburg in the number of casualties. -
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Sherman's Atlanta Campaign
The Atlanta Campaign was a series of battles fought in the Western Theater of the American Civil War throughout northwest Georgia and the area around Atlanta during the summer of 1864. -
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Sherman's March to the Sea
Sherman's March to the Sea, more formally known as the Savannah Campaign, was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 to December 21, 1864 by Maj. Gen. Sherman of the Union Army. -
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Andersonville Prison Camp
Andersonville, or Camp Sumter as it was known officially, held more prisoners at any given time than any of the other Confederate military prisons. It was built in early 1864 after Confederate officials decided to move the large number of Federal prisoners in and around Richmond. -
Freedman's Bureau
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was created by Congress in March 1865. The Bureau's task was to help the Southern blacks and whites make the transition from slavery to freedom. It also established a number of colleges and training schools for blacks, including Howard University -
Thirteenth Amendment
To the Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Formally abolishing slavery in the United States, the 13th Amendment was passed by the Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865. -
Henry McNeal Turner
Turner was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Georgia. Turner was never a slave. Against great odds, Turner managed to receive an education. -
Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Admendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. -
Ku Klux Klan Formed
A group of Confederate veterans convenes to form a secret society that they christen the “Ku Klux Klan.” The KKK rapidly grew from a secret social fraternity to a paramilitary force bent on reversing the federal government’s progressive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South. -
Fifteenth Admendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. " Although ratified on February 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century. -
Dread Scott Case
What did the Constitution say on the subject of slavery? This question was raised in 1857 before the Supreme Court in case of DRED SCOTT VS. SANDFORD. They Missouri Compromise was therefore unconstitutional.
