Georgia History Timeline Project

  • Period: Oct 23, 1539 to Oct 23, 1540

    Mississippian

    The mississippian way of life began to devlop in the mississipp river valley. Cultures in the tributary tennessee river vally may have also begun to develop. Missippian characteristies at this point almost all dated mississippian sites preate 1539-1540 when Hernando de soto explored the area.
  • Period: to

    Georgia Founded

    It had been more than five decades since the British had established a new colony. James Edward Oglethorpe, a philanthropist and an English general, along with twenty-one other men, created a charter to settle a new colony which they named Georgia in honor of King George II
  • Period: to

    Salzburgers Arrive

    March 12, 1734 - Savannah, Ebenezer

    Their arrival in Georgia on this date in 1734 heralded the beginning of one of the most culturally distinctive communities in Georgia. The Catholic Archbishop of Salzburg expelled German Protestants from the region in present-day Austria in 1731, and England’s King George II offered them refuge in the new colony of Georgia. Some 300 Salzburgers following Pastor Johann Martin Bolzius accepted the invitation. General Oglethorpe greeted the exiles in Savannah,
  • Yazoo Land Fruad

    The Yazoo land fraud was one of the most significant events in the post–Revolutionary War (1775-83) history of Georgia. The bizarre climax to a decade of frenzied speculation in the state's public lands, the Yazoo sale of 1795 did much to shape Georgia politics and to strain relations with the federal government for a generation.
  • Louisville

    Louisville the county seat of jefferson county also served as Georgia third capital from 1796 until 1807
  • Worcester VS Georgia

    In the 1820s and 1830s Georgia conducted a relentless campaign to remove the Cherokees, who held territory within the borders of Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee at the time. In 1827 the Cherokees established a constitutional government.
  • Trail of tears

    In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects
  • Compromise

    The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848).
  • Georgia platform

    The Georgia Platform was a statement executed by a Georgia Convention in Milledgeville, Georgia on December 10, 1850 in response to the Compromise of 1850.
  • kansas nebraska act

    The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 (10 Stat. 277) created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery ...
  • Atlanta Braves

    When the National Association folded, the Red Stockings joined the National League. On April 22, 1876, they played in the very first National League game, scoring two runs in the ninth inning to beat the homestanding Philadelphia Athletics, 6-5, before a crowd of 3,000
  • Benjamin Mays

    Perhaps best known as the longtime president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Benjamin Mays was a distinguished African American minister, educator, scholar, and social activist. He was also a significant mentor to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and was among the most articulate and outspoken critics of segregation before the rise of the modern civil rights movement in the United States. Mays also filled leadership roles in several significant national and international organizations
  • 1906 atlanta riot

    During the Atlanta race riot that occurred September 22-24, 1906, white mobs killed dozens of blacks, wounded scores of others, and inflicted considerable property damage. Local newspaper reports of alleged assaults by black males on white females were the catalyst for the riot, but a number of underlying causes lay behind the outbreak of the mob violence.
  • Ivan Allen jr.

    Allen was born on March 15,1911 the only son of Ivan allen and Irene Beaumont Allen. After graduating from the local Boys High School, Allen attended the Georgia Institute of Technology from 1929 to 1933.
  • William B. Hartsfield

    William B. Hartsfield was a man of humble
  • Missouri Compromise

    The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free
  • Martin Luther King jr.

    Family, church, and education shaped King's life from an early age. Michael Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta on January 15, 1929, to Alberta Williams and Michael Luther King Sr. In 1934, after visiting Europe, Michael King Sr. changed his and his son's name in honor of the sixteenth-century German church reformer Martin Luther. King spent his early years in the family home at 501 Auburn Avenue, about a block from
    Martin Luther King Jr., Baptist minister and president of the Southern Christian
  • Herman Talmadge

    Herman Talmadge, son of Eugene Talmadge, served as governor of Georgia
    Herman Talmadge, son of Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge, took the governor's office briefly in 1947, and again after a special election in 1948.
    Herman Talmadge
    for a brief time in early 1947 and again from 1948 to 1954. In 1956 Talmadge was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until his defeat in 1980. Talmadge, a Democrat, was governor at a time of political transition in the state, and he served in the Senate duri
  • 1946 Governors Race

    Georgia's "three governors controversy" of 1946-47, which began with the death of governor-elect Eugene Talmadge, was one of the more bizarre political spectacles in the annals of American politics. In the wake of Talmadge's death, his supporters proposed a plan that allowed the Georgia legislature to elect a governor in January 1947. When the General Assembly elected Talmadge's son Herman Talmadge as governor, the newly elected lieutenant governor, Melvin Thompson, claimed the office of governo
  • Brown v. Board of Education

    On May 17, 1954, the Court unanimously ruled that "separate but equal" public schools for blacks and whites were unconstitutional. The Brown case served as a catalyst for the modern civil rights movement, inspiring education reform everywhere and forming the legal means of challenging segregation in all areas of society. After Brown, the nation made great strides toward opening the doors of education to all students. With court orders and active enforcement of federal civil rights laws, progres
  • Atlanat Falcons

    Team owner and founder Rankin M. Smith passed
    away from heart complications just hours before the
    Falcons October 26, 1997 game at Carolina. Some of
    the largest footprints on professional, college and high
    school sports in Atlanta belong to Smith, who founded
    the Atlanta Falcons in 1966
  • 1956 State Flag

    The current Georgia state flag was the state's third in twenty-seven months. The new flag features the state coat of arms, surrounded by thirteen stars, which represent the original American colonies.
    State Flag, 2004
    May 8, 2003, Governor Sonny Perdue signed legislation creating a new state flag for Georgia. The new banner became effective immediately, giving Georgia its third state flag in only twenty-seven months—a national record. Georgia also leads the nation in the number and variety o
  • Atlanta Hawk

    Atlanta Hawks player Al Harrington (left) attempts a rebound during a game with the Phoenix Suns at Philips Arena in 2006. The Hawks franchise moved to Atlanta from St. Louis, Missouri, in 1968 and has played home games at Philips Arena since 1999.
    Atlanta Hawks
    Hawks, a National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise and part of the Eastern Conference's Southeast Division, have called Atlanta home since 1968. Playing at Philips Arena in the heart of downtown Atlanta, the Hawks join the Brav
  • Dahlon

    Gold was first discovered in the Dahlonega area in 1828, twenty years before the Gold Rush to California. When it was discovered it was completely by accident – when a deer hunter, Benjamin Parks, tripped over a rock 2 ½ miles south of what is now Dahlonega, got looking at it and it was full of gold. Within one year’s time some 15,000 miners heard about that and rushed to find some gold for themselves. At that time there was so much gold in and around Dahlonega that it laid on top of the ground
  • Trail of tears

    The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of Native American nations in the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The relocated peoples suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route, and more than ten thousand died before reaching their various destinations. The removal included members of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations, from their ancestral homelands in the southeastern U.S. to an area west of the Mississippi River
  • Eli

    In 1794, U.S.-born inventor 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. By the mid-19th century, cotton had become America’s leading export. Despite its success, the gin made little money for Whitney due to patent-infringement issues. Also, his invention offered Southern planters a justification to maintain and expand slavery even as a growing number of Americans su
  • international cotton exposition

    In the late nineteenth century, fairs and expositions were an important way for cities to attract
    This engraving shows the 1887 Piedmont Exposition's main building. Located in Atlanta's Piedmont Park, the structure was 570 feet long, 126 feet wide, and two stories high. The Exposition opened on October 10 to nearly 20,000 visitors.
    1887 Piedmont Exposition Main Building
    visitors and investors who, in an era before radio and television, were eager to see new technological marvels on display. The
  • County unit system

    The county unit system was established in 1917 when the Georgia legislature, overwhelmingly dominated by the Democratic Party, passed the Neill Primary Act.
    Election day in Kingsland, Camden County, in the early 1960s, before the advent of voting booths. Georgia's elections were governed by the county unit system, which gave more weight to rural votes than to urban votes, until 1962. Even though they were home to a minority of Georgians, rural counties usually decided the winners of statewide e
  • Tom Watson and the populists

    The public life of Thomas E. Watson is perhaps one of the more perplexing and controversial among Georgia politicians. In his early years he was characterized as a liberal, especially for his time. In later years he emerged as a force for white supremacy and anti-Catholic rhetoric. He was elected to the Georgia General Assembly (1882), the U.S. House of Representatives (1890), and the U.S. Senate (1920), where he served for only a short time before his death. Nominated by the Populist Party as i
  • Plessy v. Ferguson

    lessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal".[1] The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. "Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 195
  • leo frank case

    The Leo Frank case is one of the most notorious and highly publicized cases in the legal annals of Georgia. A Jewish man in Atlanta was placed on trial and convicted of raping and murdering a thirteen-year-old girl who worked for the National Pencil Company, which he managed. Before the lynching of Frank two years later, the case became known throughout the nation. The degree of anti-Semitism involved in Frank's conviction and subsequent lynching is difficult to assess, but it was enough of a fa
  • Booker t. washington

    Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community. Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discrimi