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Jan 1, 1000
Archaic
The Archaic Period of Georgia prehistory lasted from about 10,000 to 3,000 years ago. Archaeologists have divided this very long period into three main subperiods: Early, Middle, and Late. Each is distinguished by important changes in cultural traditions, which generally follow a trend toward increasing social complexity. -
Jan 1, 1000
Woodland
The Woodland Period of Georgia prehistory is broadly dated from around 1000 B.C. to A.D. 900. This period witnessed the development of many trends that began during the preceding Late Archaic Period (3000–1000 B.C.) and reached a climax during the subsequent Mississippian Period (A.D. 800–1600). -
Jan 1, 1000
Paleo
No large Paleoindian sites have yet been excavated in Georgia, and much of our knowledge about these peoples is based on discoveries elsewhere in the region and beyond.The initial human settlement of Georgia took place during one of the most dramatic periods of climate change in recent earth history, toward the end of the Ice Age, in the Late Pleistocene epoch. -
Period: Oct 27, 1500 to May 21, 1542
Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto was born c. 1500 in Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain. In the early 1530s, while on Francisco Pizarro's expedition, de Soto helped conquer Peru. In 1539 he set out for North America, where he discovered the Mississippi River. De Soto died of fever on May 21, 1542, in Ferriday, Louisiana. In his will, de Soto named Luis de Moscoso Alvarado the new leader of the expedition. -
Charter Of 1732
The first twenty years of Georgia history are referred to as Trustee Georgia because during that time a Board of Trustees governed the colony. England's King George signed a charter establishing the colony and creating its governing board on April 21, 1732. -
Georgia Founded
February 12, 1733 - Savannah
After years of planning and two months crossing the Atlantic, James Oglethorpe and 114 colonists climbed 40 feet up the bluff from the Savannah River on this day in 1733 and founded the colony of Georgia. -
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, -
Highland Scots Arrive
Kinship contacts and common interests began to tie Georgia's early migrants together in the 1740s. Anglo-German links, for instance, were more amiable in the aftermath of the frightening war with Spain that had forced many coastal settlers to flee inland. After James Edward Oglethorpe's victory at Bloody Marsh repulsed the Spaniards on July 7, 1742, the former refugees sent letters to Salzburg families thanking them for their kindness and including coffee and silk ribbons as tokens of their grat -
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Henry Ellis
Henry Ellis, the second royal governor of Georgia, has been called "Georgia's second founder." Georgia had no self-government under the Trustees (1732-52), and the first royal governor, John Reynolds (1754-57), failed as an administrator. Under the leadership of Ellis (1757-60) Georgians learned how to govern themselves, and they have been doing so ever since. -
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American Revolution
The American Revolution was a political battle that took place between 1765 and 1783 during which colonists in the Thirteen American Colonies rejected the British monarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain, and founded the United States of America. See the fact file below for more information and American Revolution facts. -
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Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, was born on December 8, 1765 in Westborough, Massachusetts. His mother died when he was only eleven years old. At age 14, Eli had started his own business making and selling nails in his father’s workshop during the Revolutionary War.While working as a school teacher and farmer, Whitney was able to save enough money to attend college at Yale University. After graduating with honors from Yale, he studied law, but failed to finish his studies because -
Battle of Kettle Creek
February 14, 1779 - Wilkes County, Augusta
Georgians weren’t feeling the love, even if it was Valentine’s Day.The Battle of Kettle Creek was fought during the American Revolution on this day in 1779. 600 loyalists from Georgia and the Carolinas were camped on the creek, which flows into the Little River in Wilkes County, Georgia’s backcountry in those days. The British believed if they marched an army through Georgia and the Carolinas, thousands of Southern loyalists would flock to the roy -
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Austin Dabney
Austin Dabney was a slave who became a private in the Georgia militia and fought against the British during the Revolutionary War (1775-83). He was the only African American to be granted land by the state of Georgia in recognition of his bravery and service during the Revolution and one of the few to receive a federal military pension.
Born in Wake County, North Carolina, in the 1760s, Austin Dabney moved with his master, Richard Aycock, to Wilkes County, Georgia, in the late 1770s. In order to -
Yazoo Land Fraud
Georgia was too weak after the Revolution to defend its vast western land claims, called the "Yazoo lands" after the river that flowed through the westernmost part. Consequently, the legislature listened eagerly to proposals from speculators willing to pay for the right to form settlements there. In the 1780s the state supported two unsuccessful speculative projects to establish counties in the western territory and in 1788 tried, again without success, to cede a portion of those lands to Congre -
University of Georgia Founded
The University of Georgia (UGA) is the oldest, largest, and most comprehensive educational institution in Georgia. Chartered by the Georgia General Assembly in 1785, UGA was the first university in America to be created by a state government, and the principles undergirding its charter helped lay the foundation for the American system of public higher education. UGA strives for excellence in three fundamental missions: providing students with outstanding instruction in classrooms and laboratorie -
Constitutional Convention
Before the Constitution was drafted, the nearly 4 million inhabitants[2] of the 13 newly independent states were governed under the Articles of Confederation, created by the Second Continental Congress. It soon became evident to nearly all that the chronically underfunded Confederation government, as originally organized, was inadequate for managing the various conflicts that arose among the states.[3]:4–5[4]:14–16 As the Articles of Confederation could only be amended by unanimous vote of the s -
Georgia Ratifies Constitution
January 2, 1788 - Augusta
The U.S. Constitution has always been contentious. Our sacred charter was born in controversy and remains so to this day. Georgia elected six delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. Only four went. And only two—Abraham Baldwin and William Few—signed the final document. The convention, chaired by George Washington, had the authority to revise the Articles of Confederation. It went far beyond that. Instead, after four fractio -
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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 new upcountry settlers outnumbered those in the older coastal counties, and upcountry legislators demanded a state capital in a more western location than Savannah. -
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. -
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John Reynolds
Little is known about Reynolds's early life except that his birth occurred in England circa 1713 and that at fifteen years of age he volunteered for service in the British navy. His career advanced slowly but steadily. He obtained command of his first vessel, the fireship Scipio, in 1745, and the next year he served as captain of the Arundel, a forty-gun vessel. His naval career took Reynolds to a variety of English ports and included convoy duty to British America, as well as service at Jamaica -
Dahlonega Gold Rush
Dahlonega It was October and the trees were golden...and not just the trees. Benjamin Parks was walking through the woods of north Georgia when he kicked a stone. There were lots of stones in the woods, but the color of this one caught Parks’ eye. It turned out to be gold. Five other people claimed to be the first to make the discovery, but the result was the same: thousands of miners swarmed into the mountains in what the Cherokees called the “Great Intrusion,” and the Georgia Gold Rus -
Worcester v. Georgia: The Background
Worcester v. Georgia deals with Georgia state laws that were passed in the middle of the 1800s. These laws were passed following an agreement reached between the Cherokee tribe and the state government of Georgia. The laws instituted a prohibition of non-Indians from living in Indian territories. Only Non-Native Americans with special permission from the government were allowed to live on these lands.
The case beings when missionary Sam Worcester and his family (wife and 5 fellow missionaries) -
Henry McNeal Turner
Turner was born in 1834 in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina, to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner. Turner was never a slave. His paternal grandmother was a white plantation owner. His maternal grandfather, David Greer, arrived in North America aboard a slave ship but, according to family legend, was found to have a tattoo with the Mandingo coat of arms, signifying his royal status. The South Carolinians decided not to sell Greer into slavery and sent him to live with a Quaker family. -
Dred Scott
Dred Scott reportedly attempted to purchase his freedom from Emerson’s widow, who refused the sale. In 1846, with the help of antislavery lawyers, Harriet and Dred Scott filed individual lawsuits for their freedom in Missouri state court in Saint Louis on the grounds that their residence in a free state and a free territory had freed them from the bonds of slavery. It was later agreed that only Dred’s case would move forward; the decision in that case would apply to Harriet’s case as well. Altho -
Compromise Of 1850
The state where slavery woukld be pemitted at the time the united states confrontationbetween slave and free states. -
Georgia Platform
Georgia Platform, statement of qualified support for the U.S. Union among Georgia conservatives following the Compromise of 1850Drawn up by Charles J. Jenkins and adopted by a state convention on Dec. 10, 1850, at Milledgeville, the Georgia Platform consisted of a set of resolutions accepting the Compromise of 1850. It was not an endorsement of the compromise, but it said that Georgia would abide by the compromise provisions “as a permanent adjustment of the sectional controversy. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
In the antebellum period of U.S. history, critical national policy change concerning the expansion of slavery into the territories, affirming the concept of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. In 1820 the Missouri Compromise had excluded slavery from that part of the Louisiana Purchase (except Missouri) north of the 36°30′ parallel. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, provided for the territorial organization of Kansas and Nebraska under the princi -
Thomas E. Watson
Born on September 5, 1856, on a plantation in Columbia County (the area today is part of McDuffie County), Edward Thomas Watson (later Thomas Edward Watson) understood the culture of the antebellum South. He was the second of seven children of Ann Eliza Maddox and John Smith Watson, both descendants of Quakers. He grew up on his grandfather's plantation, near the town of Thomson. Watson's primary education consisted of course work at a small school in Thomson. In 1872 he entered Mercer Universit -
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Union Blockade
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th American President who served in office from March 4, 1861 to April 15, 1865. One of the key strategic military policies during his presidency was the Union Blockade of the coastal ports of the Confederacy. -
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Sherman's Atlanta Campaign
Battle of Atlanta
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th American President who served in office from March 4, 1861 to April 15, 1865. One of the major battlefields in the Civil War during his presidency was the horrific Battle of Atlanta in Georgia. -
Battle of Antietam
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On September 17, 1862, Generals Robert E. Lee and George McClellan faced off near Antietam creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the the first battle of the American Civil War to be fought on northern soil.Though McClellan failed toutlilize his numerical superiority to crush Lee’sarmy, he was able to check the Confederate advance intothe north. Aftera string ofUnion defeats, this tacticalvictory provided Abraham Lincoln the political cover he needed to issue his Emancipation Proclamation -
Emancipation Proclamation
Statewide, Antietam Few presidential acts have had more impact upon the arc of history than the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on this day in 1863. It transformed a war for union into a crusade for human freedom.
Emancipation had not initially been a U.S. war aim. As the Union death toll mounted however, support grew for striking a blow against the institution that helped sustain the Confederacy. After the U.S. victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln anno -
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Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. After a great victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863. On July 1, the advancing Confederates clashed with the Union’s Army of the Potomac, commanded by General George G. Meade, at the crossroads town of Gettysburg. The next day saw even heavier fighting, -
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BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA
On September 19-20, 1863, Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee defeated a Union force commanded by General William Rosecrans in the Battle of Chickamauga, during the American Civil War. After Rosecrans’ troops pushed the Confederates out of Chattanooga early that month, Bragg called for reinforcements and launched a counterattack on the banks of nearby Chickamauga Creek. Over two days of battle, the rebels forced Rosecrans to give way, with heavy losses on both sides. Bragg failed to press his adva -
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Andersonville Prison Camp
As the Union position crumbled before a Confederate assault on the second day of the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, Sergeant Clark N. Thorp bolted with his unit, the 19th U.S. Infantry, in a mad dash for the rear. “Our retreat,” Thorp would later write, “was about such as you would have seen a rabbit make when the dogs are close behind.” Amid the smoke and noise of battle, Thorp walked straight into a Rebel line—and 19 months inside Confederate prisons. He would spend 11 of those months in Anderson -
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The Thirteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. -
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sherman's march to the sea
From November 15 until December 21, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this “March to the Sea” was to frighten Georgia’s civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. Sherman’s soldiers did not destroy any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and burned the houses and barns of people who tried to fight back. The Yankees were “not only fighting hostile armies, b -
Freedmen’s Bureau
The U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, popularly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established in 1865 by Congress to help former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War (1861-65). Some 4 million slaves gained their freedom as a result of the Union victory in the war, which left many communities in ruins and destroyed the South’s plantation-based economy. The Freedmen’s Bureau provided food, housing and medical aid, established schoo -
ku klux klan formed
In Pulaski, Tennessee, 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, especially policies that elevated the rights of the local African American population. -
The 14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. -
The 15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment, granting African-American men the right to vote, was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment reads: “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.” Despite the amendment, by the late 1870s, various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African Americans from exe -
John and Lugenia Hope
Lugenia Burns Hope was a prominent community organizer and civil rights activist, at both local and national levels, in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1908 she founded the Neighborhood Union to provide assistance to Atlanta's impoverished black neighborhoods, and in 1932 she became the first vice president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP.Burns was born on February 19, 1871, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Louisa M. Bertha and Ferdinand Burns, a successful carpenter. She was the young -
William B. Hartsfield
When you help guide a city through a depression and then, later, guide it through the civil rights era...when you are responsible for Atlanta’s becoming the aviation capital that it is…then it’s fair to say you’ve had an impact. The man who helped make Atlanta "the city too busy to hate" was born on March 1, 1890 -
William B. Hartsfield
Hartsfield became mayor in 1936 and served a total of 23 years. He built biracial coalitions and his steady leadership navigated Atlanta through the civil rights movement, avoiding the violence that plagued cities like Birmingham. After his death in 1971, Atlanta named the airport in his honor.
The man who helped make Atlanta "the city too busy to hate" was born on March 1, 1890, -
Booker T. Washington
On September 18, 1895, at the Atlanta Exposition, Booker T. Washington rises to national fame when he delivers what came to be known as his “Atlanta Compromise” speech, in which he advocates for the races to work together while remaining separate socially. -
International Cotton Exposition
On this day in 1895, President Grover Cleveland threw an electric switch at his Massachusetts home and officially opened the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition.Civic leaders wanted to promote Georgia’s economic development and showcase Atlanta as the resurgent heart of the New South. 800,000 people visited the 6,000 exhibits. They saw the Liberty Bell, and celebrities, like Buffalo Bill and “March King” John Philip Sousa, who wrote “theKingCotton March“especially for the occasion -
Richard B. Russell
He was one of the most powerful Americans of the 20th century and served in public office for more than half of it.Richard Brevard Russell, Jr., born in Winder in 1897, graduated from the University of Georgia’s Law School.He immediately entered politics, winning election to the state legislature at 23. At 33, he was governor.Two years later,Russell won election to the U.S. Senate. He never left, serving there 38 years,until his death in 1971.He became a lion of the Senate,where he championed ag -
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1906 atlanta riot
The Atlanta race riot of 1906 was a mass civil disturbance in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), which began the evening of September 22 and lasted until September 24, 1906. It was characterized at the time by Le Petit Journal and other media outlets as a "racial massacre of negroes". -
Ivan Allen, Jr.
He reinforced Atlanta’s motto as “the city too busy to hate,” promoting the city’s economic and physical expansion and a progressive image that attracted new investors, including three major sports franchises—the Braves, Falcons, and Hawks. The man whose temperate leadership helped make Atlanta the capital of the modern South was born on March 15, 1911 -
Leo Frank Case
On April 26, 1913, Mary Phagan, the child of tenant farmers who had moved to Atlanta for financial gain, went to the pencil factory to pick up her $1.20 pay for the twelve hours she had worked that week. Leo Frank, the superintendent of the factory, paid her. He was the last person to acknowledge having seen Phagan alive. In the middle of the night the factory watchman found her bruised and bloodied body in the cellar and called the police. The city was aghast when it heard the news. A young fac -
WORLD WAR I HISTORY
In late June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia. An escalation of threats and mobilization orders followed the incident, leading by mid-August to the outbreak of World War I, which pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire (the so-called Central Powers) against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan (the Allied Powers). The Allies were joined after 1917 by the United States. The four years of the Great War– -
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county unit system
The County Unit System was a voting system used by the U.S. state of Georgia to determine a victor in statewide primary elections from 1917 until 1962. -
Jimmy Carter
Carter then embarked on a new career: humanitarian. He founded the Carter Center and in 2002 became only the second Georgian to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The man who rose from peanut farmer to president to peacemaker was born on October 1, -
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James Wright
Wright's early poems, especially those in his first two volumes, are "too literary, too subservient to the poems and poets of the past," according to Stitt. Other critics noted the elaborate rhymes, complex rhetoric, and traditional use of imagery in these early efforts. As Wright began to experiment "he loosened his forms" and "whittled rhetoric to a succession of intense perceptions," Laurence Goldstein explained in the Michigan Quarterly Review. The result was that his speech became more natu -
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
In his April 28, 1935, fireside chat radio broadcast, President Franklin D. Roosevelt praises the newly adopted Works Relief Program and discusses the new Social Security Act recently introduced in Congress. -
Eugene Talmadge
January 10, 1933- Forsyth, Sugar Creek
Eugene Talmadge ran for Georgia governor five times. He won four. He served three and was, to put it mildly, quite a character. Born near Forsyth in 1884, he was known as the farmer’s champion. “I can carry any county,” he boasted, “that ain’t got street cars.” Talmadge fired elected officials who resisted his authority. Others were thrown out of their offices. Literally. He ordered the board of regents to fire two University of Georgia professors who -
CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS
Formed in March 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC, was one of the first New Deal programs. It was a public works project intended to promote environmental conservation and to build good citizens through vigorous, disciplined outdoor labor. Close to the heart of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the CCC combined his interests in conservation and universal service for youth. He believed that this civilian “tree army” would relieve the rural unemployed and keep youth “off the city street co -
Agricultural Adjustment act
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), Roosevelt, Franklin D.: signing the Agricultural Adjustment Act, 1933 [Credit: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.]in American history, major New Deal program to restore agricultural prosperity by curtailing farm production, reducing export surpluses, and raising prices. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (May 1933) was an omnibus farm-relief bill embodying the schemes of the major national farm organizations. It established the Agricultural Adjustment Admini -
Rural Electrification Act
The Rural Electrification Act of 1936, enacted on May 20, 1936, provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve isolated rural areas of the United States. The funding was channeled through cooperative electric power companies, most of which still exist today. -
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World War II
World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war. It took place between 1939 to 1945. Most of the world's countries, including all of the great powers, fought as part of two military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The war was fought as a "total war", meaning all resources a country had were used in the war, even those that didn't belong to the army, such as factories. It involved more countries, cost more money, and killed more people than any other war in hu -
Pearl Harbor
On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers, fighter planes, and torpedo planes attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. This sneak attack brought the United States into World War II. -
Andrew Young
In the 1980s, he served two terms as mayor of Atlanta, playing a pivotal role in Atlanta’s rise as an international city and was instrumental in bringing the 1996 Olympic Games to Atlanta. Georgia’s first black congressman in the 20th century was first elected on November 7, 1972 -
PLESSY V. FERGUSON
On January 25, 1977, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing to confirm Andrew Young as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. During the hearing, Young, who had come to national prominence as a leader in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, makes clear his intention to use the democratic process to ensure world peace. He later became the first African-American to occupy this position. -
W. E. B. DU BOIS
On January 25, 1977, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing to confirm Andrew Young as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. During the hearing, Young, who had come to national prominence as a leader in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, makes clear his intention to use the democratic process to ensure world peace. He later became the first African-American to occupy this position. -
1996 Olympic games
Centennial Olympic Park, Turner Field, and increased investment and tourism are all legacies of the ’96 Summer Games. The largest event in Atlanta history began with the opening ceremonies on July 19, 1996, -
Martin Luther King, Jr
The daily activities created for each of the Today in Georgia History segments are designed to meet the Georgia Performance Standards for Reading across the Curriculum, and Grade Eight: Georgia Studies. For each date, educators can choose from three optional activities differentiated for various levels of student ability. Each activity focuses on engaging the student in context specific vocabulary and imp roving the student’s ability to communicate about historical topics. -
election of 1860
The United States presidential election of 1860 was the 19th quadrennial presidential election. The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War. -
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Mississippian
The Mississippian Period in the midwestern and southeastern United States, which lasted from about A.D. 800 to 1600, saw the development of some of the most complex societies that ever existed in North America.In Georgia the Mississippian Period is divided into Early, Middle, and Late subperiods. The Early Mississippian subperiod (A.D. 800-1100) was the time when the first chiefdoms developed in the state.
