Georgia History Timeline Project

  • Jan 1, 1000

    Archaic

    Archaic
    Early Archaic people were hunts and gathering who lived in small groups or bands. They were divided to three main sub periods. They were early middle and late.
  • Jan 1, 1000

    Woodland

    Woodland
    Early sub period 1000 - 300 B.C
  • Jan 1, 1000

    Paleo

    Paleo
    Paleo were native americans. The first people to live in a Georgia. They in Georgia 11,000 - 8,000 B.C.
  • Period: Jan 1, 1500 to May 21, 1542

    Hernando de Sota

    The first European to explore the interior of what is now the state of Georgia was Hernando de Soto. In fact, De Soto entered the state on two occasions during the course of his expedition.
  • Charter of 1732

    Charter of 1732
    King George 2 granted James Oglethorpe and the Trustees a Charter to establishe colony of Georgia. England's King George signed a charter establishing the colony and creating its governing board on April 21, 1732.
  • Georgia Founded

    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.
  • Arrive High Land Scots

    Arrive High Land Scots
    General James Edward Oglethorpe founded the new Georgia colony at Savannah on February 12, 1733. He soon realized the need for military outposts to the south to protect the main settlement at Savannah. The purpose of the Georgia colony was largely military at first (as well as philanthropic). Thus, Oglethorpe decided upon an outpost on the former site of Fort King George on the Altamaha and a more elaborate fortification on St. Simons Island, a short distance south of the Altamaha.
  • Salzburgers Arrive

    Salzburgers Arrive
    The Georgia Salzburgers, a group of German-speaking Protestant colonists, founded the town of Ebenezer in what is now Effingham County. Arriving in 1734, the group received support from King George II of England and the Georgia Trustees after they were expelled from their home in the Catholic principality of Salzburg (in present-day Austria). The Salzburgers survived extreme hardships in both Europe and Georgia to establish a prosperous and culturally unique community. March 12, 1734
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    John Reynolds

    John Reynolds, a captain in the British royal navy, served as Georgia's first royal governor from late 1754 to early 1757.
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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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    James Wright

    James Wright was the third and last royal governor of Georgia, serving from 1760 to 1782,
    James Wright replaced Henry Ellis as royal governor of Georgia in 1760 and proved to be an efficient and popular administrator. During his tenure in office (1760-76) Georgia enjoyed a period of remarkable growth.
    James Wright
    with a brief interruption early in the American Revolution (1775-83).
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    American Revolution

    Though Georgians opposed British trade regulations, many hesitated to join the revolutionary movement that emerged in the american colonies in the early 1770s and resulted in the revolutionary war ( 1775 - 83).
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    Yazoo Land Fraud

    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.
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    Yazoo Land Fraud

    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.
  • Georgia Ratifies Constitution

    Georgia Ratifies Constitution
    State constitutions are best understood with reference to their historical roots. A review of the history of Georgia's ten constitutions provides a synopsis of the political, economic, and social history of the state. Georgia's constitutional history also illustrates the various methods by which a constitution may be written or revised. Georgia has used three different methods of constitutional revision: seven were revised by constitutional conventions, two by constitutional commissions, and one
  • Constitutional Convention

    Constitutional Convention
    Constitutional conventions are a distinctly American political innovation, first appearing during the era of the Revolutionary War (1775-83). Georgia was among the first states to use a meeting of delegates to create a constitution. In October 1776, just three months after the American colonies declared independence from Great Britain, Georgia's first constitutional convention met and produced the state's inaugural constitution, known as the Constitution of 1777. Several other states also chose
  • Elijah Clarke

    Elijah Clarke
    Among the few heroes of the revolutionary war from Georgia Elijah Clarke was born in 1742 the son of John Clarke of Anson County, North Carolina.
  • University of Georgia Founded

    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
  • Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin

    Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin
    Eli Whitney , a Massachusetts native , only spent a few months living in Georgia , but during that time in that time in 1793, he invented the Cotton Gin.
  • Capital Moved To Louisville

    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.
  • Benjamin Hayes

    Benjamin Hayes
    Hayes was born on February 14, 1815, in Baltimore, Maryland, and was graduated from St. Mary's University in that city. Shortly after graduation, he relocated to Missouri, but in 1849 he "set out from Independence, Missouri, for California, riding one mule and leading another packed with supplies for the trip." He joined a train of pioneers and reached a Mormon settlement near San Bernardino, California, in January 1850. He stopped again at Mission San Gabriel and reached the "pueblo of Los Ange
  • Miissouri Compromise

    In the years leading up to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, tensions began to rise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions within the U.S. Congress and across the country. They reached a boiling point after Missouri’s 1819 request for admission to the Union as a slave state, which threatened to upset the delicate balance between slave states and free states. To keep the peace, Congress orchestrated a two-part compromise, granting Missouri’s request but also admitting Maine as a free state
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    Dahlonega Gold Rush

    There are several popular stories of the beginning of Georgia's gold rush; but in fact, no one is really certain who made the first discovery or when.
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    Trail of Tears

    The Trail of Tears refers to the forced relocation in 1838, of the Cherokee Native American tribe to Indian Territory in what would be the state of Oklahoma, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 4,000 of the 15,000 Cherokees affected.[1] This was caused by the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Cherokee Trail of Tears resulted from the enforcement of the Treaty of New Echota, an agreement signed under the provisions of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which exchanged Native American land in the
  • Worcester V. Georgia

    Worcester V. 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. The Cherokees were not only restructuring their government but also declaring to the American public that they were a sovereign nation that could not be removed without their consent. An infuriated Georgia legislature responded by purporting to ex
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    Trail of Tears

    In 1838 and 1839 U.S. troops, promoted by the state of Georgia, expelled the Cherokee Indians from their ancestral homeland.
  • Compromise of 1850

    Compromise of 1850
    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 (1846–48).
  • 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

    Kansas Nebraska Act
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    The Kansas-Nebrask Act was an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state’s borders. Proposed by Stephen A. Douglas–Abraham Lincoln’s opponent in the influential Lincoln-Douglas debates–the bill overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory. The conflicts that arose between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the aftermath of th
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    Dred Scott Case

    In March 1857, in one of the most controversial events preceding the American Civil War (1861-65), the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford. The case had been brought before the court by Dred Scott, a slave who had lived with his owner in a free state before returning to the slave state of Missouri. Scott argued that his time spent in these locations entitled him to emancipation. In his decision, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a staunch supporter
  • Election of 1860

    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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    Union Blockade of Georgia

    The battle between ship and shore on the coast of Confederate Georgia was a pivotal part of the Union strategy to subdue the state during the Civil War (1861-65). U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's call at the start of the war for a naval blockade of the entire Southern coastline took time to materialize, but by early 1862, under Union general Winfield Scott's "Anaconda Plan," the Union navy had positioned a serviceable fleet off the coast of the South's most prominent Confederate ports. In Georgi
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    Sherman Atlanta Campaign

    In the summer of 1864, during the U.S. Civil War (1861-65), Union General William T. Sherman faced off against Confederate generals Joseph E. Johnston and John B. Hood in a series of battles in northern Georgia. Sherman’s goal was to destroy the Army of the Tennessee, capture Atlanta and cut off vital Confederate supply lines. While Sherman failed to destroy his enemy, he was able to force the surrender of Atlanta in September 1864,boosting Northern morale and greatly improving President Abraham
  • Battle of Antietam

    Battle of Antietam
    The Army of the Potomac, under the command of George McClellan, mounted a series of powerful assaults against Robert E. Lee’s forces near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862. The morning assault and vicious Confederate counterattacks swept back and forth through Miller’s Cornfield and the West Woods. Later, towards the center of the battlefield, Union assaults against the Sunken Road pierced the Confederate center after a terrible struggle. Late in the day, the third and final major assa
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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, as the Co
  • Battle of Chickamauga

    Battle of Chickamauga
    The Battle of Chickamauga, fought September 19–20, 1863,[1] marked the end of a Union offensive in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia called the Chickamauga Campaign. The battle was the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theater of the American Civil War and involved the second highest number of casualties in the war following the Battle of Gettysburg. It was the first major battle of the war that was fought in Georgia.
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    Andersonville Prison Camp

    In
    In 1970 Andersonville was named a National Historic Site, and includes the Confederate prison site, the cemetery, and the National Prisoner of War Museum. It is the only park in the National Park System that serves as a memorial to all American prisoners of war.
    Andersonville Cemetery
    February 1864, during the Civil War (1861-65), a Confederate prison was established in Macon County, in southwest Georgia, to provide relief for the large number of Union prisoners concentrated in and around R
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    Sherman 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
  • Freeman Bureau

    Freeman 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
  • International Cotton Expositions

    International Cotton Expositions
    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
  • Tom Watson and the Populists

    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
  • Benjamin Hayes

    Benjamin Hayes
    Benjamin Elijah Mays (August 1, 1894 – March 28, 1984) was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights, and the progression of African American rights in America. He was active working with world leaders, such as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and John D. Rockefeller, in improving the social standing of minorities in politics, education, and business
  • 1906 Atlanta Race Riot

    1906 Atlanta Race 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.

    Ivan Allen Jr.
    Ivan Allen Jr. served as mayor of Atlanta from 1962 to 1970.
    Ivan Allen Jr. served as mayor of Atlanta from 1962 to 1970. He is credited with leading the city through an era of significant physical and economic growth and with maintaining calm during the civil rights movement. In 1965 he persuaded the Braves to move to Atlanta from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
    Ivan Allen Jr., 1965
    He is credited with leading the city through an era of significant physical and economic growth and with maintaining calm
  • Herman Talmadge

    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
  • Jimmy Carter in Georgia

    Jimmy Carter in Georgia
    Jimmy Carter, the only Georgian elected president of the United States, held the office for one term, 1977-81. His previous public service included a stint in the U.S. Navy, two senate terms in the Georgia General Assembly, and one term as governor of Georgia (1971-75). After being defeated in the presidential election of 1980, he founded the Carter Center, a nonpartisan public policy center in Atlanta.
  • Martin Luther King Jr.

    Martin Luther King Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs. King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its fi
  • Andrew Young

    Andrew Young
    Andrew Young's lifelong work as a politician, human rights activist, and businessman has been in great measure responsible for the development of Atlanta's reputation as an international city.
  • Brown v. Board of Education

    Brown v. Board of Education
    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facil
  • 1946 Governors Race

    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
  • Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee

    Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee
    The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced "snick": /ˈsnɪk/) was one of the most important organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.[1][2] It emerged from a student meeting organized by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in April 1960. SNCC grew into a large organization with many supporters in the North who helped raise funds to support SNCC's work in the South, allowing full-time SNCC workers to have a $10 per week salary. Many unpaid voluntee
  • Sibley Comission

    Sibley Comission
    In
    Reporters gather at Atlanta's city hall on August 30, 1961, the day that the city's schools were officially integrated. The recommendations of the Sibley Commission to the state legislature in 1960 contributed to the desegregation of schools across Georgia.
    Integration of Atlanta Schools
    1960 Governor Ernest Vandiver Jr., forced to decide between closing public schools or complying with a federal order to desegregate them, tapped state representative George Busbee to introduce legislation cr
  • Lester Maddox

    Lester Maddox
    The tumultuous political and social change in Georgia during the 1960s yielded perhaps the state's most unlikely governor, Lester Maddox. Brought to office in 1966 by widespread dissatisfaction with desegregation, Maddox surprised many by serving as an able and unquestionably colorful chief executive.
  • The Albany Movement

    The Albany Movement
    According to traditional accounts, the Albany Movement began in fall 1961 and ended in summer 1962. It was the first mass movement in the modern civil rights era to have as its goal the desegregation of an entire community, and it resulted in the jailing of more than 1,000 African Americans in Albany and surrounding rural counties. Martin Luther King Jr. was drawn into the movement in December 1961 when hundreds of black protesters, including himself, were arrested in one week, but eight months
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    Emancipation Proclamation
    President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free.
  • March on Washington

    March on Washington
    On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups, the event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. The march, which became a key moment in the growing struggle for civil rights in the United States, culminated in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Drea
  • Civil Rights Act

    Civil Rights Act
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. In subsequent years, Congress expanded the act and also pas
  • Atlanta Falcons

    Atlanta Falcons
    The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta, Georgia. They are a member of the South Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The Falcons joined the NFL in 1965[3] as an expansion team, after the NFL offered then-owner Rankin Smith a franchise to keep him from joining the rival American Football League (AFL). The AFL instead granted a franchise to Miami, Florida (the Miami Dolphins). The Falcons are tied with th
  • Atlanta Braves

    Atlanta Braves
    The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball franchise based in Atlanta since 1966, after having originated and played for many decades in Boston and then having subsequently played in Milwaukee for a little more than a decade. The team is a member of the East division of the National League (NL) in Major League Baseball (MLB). The Braves have played home games at Turner Field since 1997, and play spring training games in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. In 2017, the team is to move to Sun
  • Atlanta Hawks

    Atlanta Hawks
    The Atlanta Hawks are a professional basketball team based in Atlanta, Georgia. The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member team of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The Hawks play their home games at Philips Arena. The team's origins can be traced to the establishment of the Tri-Cities Blackhawks in 1946, a member of the National Basketball League and owned by Ben Kerner. In 1949, they joined the National Basketball Association (NBA) as part of
  • Maynard Jackson Elected Mayor

    Maynard Jackson Elected Mayor
    Last edited by NGE Staff on 01/06/2016
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    Elected mayor of Atlanta in 1973, Maynard Jackson was the first African American to serve as mayor of a major southern city. Jackson served eight years and then returned for a third term
    Elected mayor of Atlanta in 1973, Maynard Jackson was the first African American to serve as mayor of a major southern city. Jackson served eight years and then returned for a third term in 1990. During his tenure, Jackson increased the amount of city bus
  • Hamilton Holmes and Charleyne Hunter

    Hamilton Holmes and Charleyne Hunter
    Hamilton Holmes is best known for desegregating Georgia's universities. One of the first two African American students admitted to the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens in 1961, Holmes was also the first black student admitted to the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta two years later.
  • 1996 Olympics Games

    1996 Olympics Games
    From July 19 until August 4, 1996, Atlanta hosted the Centennial Summer Olympic Games, an event that was without doubt the largest undertaking in the city's history. The goal of civic leaders was to promote Atlanta's image as an international city ready to play an important role in global commerce.
    The opening ceremony on July 19, 1996, attracted a capacity crowd of 83,000 to the Olympic Stadium for a display honoring southern culture and the one-hundredth anniversary of the modern Olympic move
  • 1956 State Flag

    1956 State Flag
    On
    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
  • William B. Hartsfield

    William B. Hartsfield
    William B. Hartsfield was a man of humble origins who became one of the greatest mayors of Atlanta.
    William B. Hartsfield served as mayor of Atlanta for six terms (1937-41, 1942-61), longer than any other person in the city's history. He is credited with developing Atlanta into an aviation powerhouse and with building its image as &quotA City Too Busy to Hate."
    William B. Hartsfield
    He served as mayor for six terms (1937-41, 1942-61), longer than any other person in the city's history. Hartsfie
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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.