Georgia History Timeline Project

  • Oct 27, 1496

    hernado de soto

    Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States, and the first documented European to have crossed the Mississippi River.
  • 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
  • ga founded

    Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. Named after King George II of Great Britain, Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. It declared its secession from the Union on January 19, 1861, and was one of the
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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.
  • university of Georgia founder

    university of Georgia founder
    UGA is the oldest, largest, and most comprehensive educational institution in GA. UGA has a workforce of more than 9800, an annual budget of about 1.4 billion. UGA is located in Athens-Clarke county about 70 miles northeast if Atlanta. in the summer of 1996 UGA hosted volleyball and rhythmic gymnastic competitions during Olympic games.
  • missouri compromise

    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.
  • kanasa-nebrasks act

    kanasa-nebrasks 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
  • eli whitney and the cotton gin

    eli whitney and the cotton gin
    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
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    dahlonega gold rush

    The Georgia Gold Rush was the second significant gold rush in the United States, and overshadowed the previous rush in North Carolina. It started in 1828 in present-day Lumpkin County near the county seat, Dahlonega, and soon spread through the North Georgia mountains, following the Georgia Gold Belt. By the early 1840s, gold became difficult to find. Many Georgia miners moved west when gold was found in the Sierra Nevada in 1848, starting the California Gold Rush.
  • worecester v. georgia

    worecester v. georgia
    Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester and held that the Georgia criminal statute that prohibited non-Native Americans from being present on Native American lands without a license from the state was unconstitutional.
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    trails 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 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 (1846–1848).
  • georgia platform

    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.
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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.
  • alonza herndon

    An African American barber and entrepreneur, Alonzo Herndon was founder and president of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, one of the most successful black-owned insurance businesses in the nation. At the time of his death in 1927, he was also Atlanta's wealthiest black citizen, owning more property than any other African American. Admired and respected by many, he was noted for his involvement in and support of local institutions and charities devoted to advancing African American business an
  • election of 1850

    election of 1850
    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.
  • freedmen's bureau

    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).
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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,
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    sherman's 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.
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    andersonville prison camp

    From February 1864 until the end of the American Civil War (1861-65) in April 1865, Andersonville, Georgia, served as the site of a notorious Confederate military prison. The prison at Andersonville, officially called Camp Sumter, was the South’s largest prison for captured Union soldiers and known for its unhealthy conditions and high death rate.
  • plessy v. ferguson

    plessy v. ferguson
    Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 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
  • battle of antietam

    battle of antietam
    he 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.
  • 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."
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    battle of gettysburg

    The Battle of Gettysburg (local i/ˈɡɛtɨsbɜrɡ/, with an /s/ sound) was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War.
  • battle of chickamauga

    battle of chickamauga
    The Battle of Chickamauga, fought September 19–20, 1863, marked the end of a Union offensive in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia called the Chickamauga Campaign. Wikipedia
  • 13th amendment

    13th amendment
    The 13th 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.
  • ku klux klan formed

    ku klux klan formed
    Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks.
  • 14th amendment

    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.
  • 15th amendment

    15th amendment
    The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that 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
  • international cotton expostion

    international cotton expostion
    International Cotton Exposition (I.C.E) was a world's fair held in Atlanta, Georgia, from October 5 to December 31 of 1881. The location was along the Western & Atlantic Railroad tracks near the present-day King Plow Arts Center development in the West Midtown area.
  • 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.
  • booker t washington

    booker t washington
    Booker Taliaferro Washington 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.
  • plessy v. ferguson

    plessy v. ferguson
    Marker placed at Press and Royal Streets in New Orleans on February 12, 2009, commemorating the arrest of Homer Plessy on June 7, 1892, for violating the Louisiana 1890 Separate Car Act
  • benjamin mays

    Benjamin Elijah Mays 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.
  • leo frank case

    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.
  • 1906 atlanta riot

    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".
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    world war 1

    World War I (WWI or WW1), also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. More than 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians died as a result of the war, a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and tactical stalemate. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, paving the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many
  • hnery mcneal turner

    hnery mcneal turner
    One of the most influential African American leaders in late-nineteenth-century Georgia,
    One of the most influential African American leaders in late-nineteenth-century Georgia, Henry McNeal Turner was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.) in Georgia.
    Henry McNeal Turner
    Henry McNeal Turner was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Georgia, later rising to the rank of bishop.
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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.
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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.
  • tom watson and the populist

    tom watson and the populist
    Thomas E. Watson (1856-1922), of Thomson, Georgia, was a colorful and successful criminal lawyer, a leading populist politician, a popular author, and an influential publisher. He served in the Georgia House of Representatives in 1882, the United States House of Representatives from 1890 to 1892, and the United States Senate from 1921 to 1922. As a major figure in the Populist Party, he ran unsuccessfully for vice-president as William Jennings Bryan's running mate in 1896 and for president in 19
  • Martin Luther King, Jr

    Martin Luther King, Jr. 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
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    great depression

    The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors.
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    holacuast

    The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was a genocide in which approximately six million Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and its collaborators throughout Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories
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    holocaust

    The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was a genocide in which approximately six million Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and its collaborators throughout Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories
  • Agricultural Adjustment Act

    Image result for agricultural adjustment act
    The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era which reduced agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land and to kill off excess livestock. Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus and therefore effectively raise the value of crops.
  • john and lugenia hope

    john and lugenia hope
    John Hope
    John and Lugenia Burns Hope, pictured with their sons, John and Edward, were leaders in Atlanta's black community during the early 1900s. John Hope served as president of both Morehouse College and Atlanta University, and Lugenia Burns Hope founded Atlanta's Neighborhood Union.
    Hope Family
    was an important African American educator and race leader of the early twentieth century. In 1906 he became the first black president of Morehouse College—the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr.—i
  • william b. hartsfiled

    William Berry Hartsfield, Sr., was an American politician who served as the 49th and 51st Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. His tenure extended from 1937 to 1941 and again from 1942 to 1962, making him the longest-serving mayor of his native Atlanta, Georgia.
  • maynard jackson elected mayor

    Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr., was an American politician, a member of the Democratic Party, and the first African American mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, serving three terms.
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    world war 2

    World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, though related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of "total war", the major participants threw their enti
  • pearl harbor

    The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, in the United States Territory of Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941
  • Civilian Conservation Corps

    Image result for civilian conservation corpstpwd.texas.gov
    The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families as part of the New Deal.
  • eugene talmadge

    eugene talmadge
    Eugene Talmadge was a Democratic politician who served two terms as the 67th Governor of Georgia from 1933 to 1937, and a third term from 1941 to 1943. Elected to a fourth term in November 1946, he died before his inauguration.
  • jerman talamadge

    Herman Eugene Talmadge, Sr., was a Democratic American politician from the state of Georgia. He served as the 70th Governor of Georgia briefly in 1947 and again from 1948 to 1955. After leaving office Talmadge was elected to the U.S. Senate, serving from 1957 until 1981.
  • 1946 governors race

    The California gubernatorial election, 1946 was held on November 5, 1946. It is notable in that the incumbent, Governor Earl Warren, was nominated by both the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as the Progressive party. Warren subsequently was reelected in the general election with more than 90% of the vote.
  • brown v borad of education

    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 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 decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inh
  • 1956 state flag

    On July 1, 1956, Georgia got a new flag. People in the Georgia Legislature wanted to send a message. Former Georgia representative James Mackay said, “there was only one reason for putting that flag on there. Like the gun rack in the back of a pickup truck, it telegraphs a message.”(see citation 1)
  • andrew young

    Andrew Jackson Young, Jr. is an American politician, diplomat, activist, and pastor from Georgia. He has served as a Congressman from Georgia's 5th congressional district, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, and Mayor of Atlanta. He served as President of the National Council of Churches USA, was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and was a supporter and friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
  • richard russell

    ard Russell, who shared his technical analysis with subscribers through the influential Dow Theory Letters since 1958, has died. He was 91.
    He died Nov. 21 at his home in La Jolla, California, his family said in a message to subscribers on the publication’s website. He had entered a hospital a week earlier and was diagnosed with blood clots in his leg and lungs “and other untreatable ailments,” his family said. He returned home under hospice care.
  • ivan allen jr.

    Ivan Allen, Jr., was an American businessman who served two terms as the 52nd Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, during the turbulent civil rights era of the 1960s. Allen provided pivotal leadership for transforming the segregated and economically stagnant Old South into the progressive New South.
  • civil rights act

    In the 1960s, Americans who knew only the potential of "equal protection of the laws" expected the president, the Congress, and the courts to fulfill the promise of the 14th Amendment. In response, all three branches of the federal government--as well as the public at large--debated a fundamental constitutional question: Does the Constitution's prohibition of denying equal protection always ban the use of racial, ethnic, or gender criteria in an attempt to bring social justice and social benefit
  • student non-violent coordinating commitee

    The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was one of the most important organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a student meeting organized by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in April 1960.
  • hamiltion holmes and charalayne 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.
  • the albany movement

    The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, on November 17, 1961, by local activists, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The organization was led by William G. Anderson, a local black Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine.
  • WEB DuBois

    WEB DuBois
    William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community.
  • march on washington

    Washington on Tuesday August 27, 1963. On Wednesday, August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism.
  • atlanta falcons

    atlanta falcons
    The 1966 Atlanta Falcons season was the franchise's inaugural season in the National Football League (NFL). The Falcons finished in seventh place in the NFL Eastern Conference with a record of 3–11, ahead of only the New York Giants.
  • lester maddox

    Lester Garfield Maddox, Sr., was an American politician who was the 75th Governor of the U.S. state of Georgia from 1967 to 1971. A populist Democrat, Maddox came to prominence as a staunch segregationist,
  • atlanta hawks

    atlanta hawks
    The team's origins can be traced to the establishment of the Tri-Cities Blackhawks in 1946, a member of the National Basketball League. In 1949, they joined the National Basketball Association (NBA) as part of the National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America merger. In 1951, the team moved to Milwaukee, where they changed their name to the Hawks. The team moved again in 1955 to St. Louis, where they won their only NBA championship in 1958. The Hawks moved to Atlanta in 19
  • carl vinson

    Carl Vinson (November 18, 1883 – June 1, 1981) was a United States Representative from Georgia. He was a Democrat and the first person to serve for more than 50 years in the United States House of Representatives. He was known as "The Father of the Two-Ocean Navy
  • rural electrification

    Rural electrification is the process of bringing electrical power to rural and remote areas. Electricity is used not only for lighting and household purposes, but it also allows for mechanization of many farming operations, such as threshing, milking, and hoisting grain for storage. In areas facing labor shortages, this allows for greater productivity at reduced cost. One famous program was the New Deal's Rural Electrification Administration in the United States, which pioneered many of the sche
  • 1996 olympic games

    The 1996 Summer Olympics, known officially as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially as the Centennial Olympic Games, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, from July 19 to August 4, 1996. A record 197 nations, all current IOC member nations, took part in the Games, comprising 10,318 athletes. The International
  • atlanta braves

    atlanta braves
    The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball franchise based in Atlanta. The team is a member of the East division of the National League in Major League Baseball. The Braves have played home games at Turner Field since 1997,
  • sibley commission

    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