On August 20, 1933, Governor Eugene Talmadge led 500 Georgians to Chicago’s Second World’s Fair, where it was Georgia Day. The fair was officially known as the “Century of Progress Exposition.” With the country mired in the Great Depression, Gov. Talmadge predicted “events of this kind will surely turn the trick and bring back prosperity.” […]
The man known as “the Georgia Peach” reached a major milestone on this day in 1921. At age 34, baseball great and Georgia native Ty Cobb got career hit number 3000, the youngest player to reach that plateau. Cobb was born in Narrows, Georgia, in 1886 and grew up in nearby Royston. He joined the […]
On August 18, 1965, the Beatles made their only Georgia appearance at a concert in Atlanta Stadium. Beatlemania was in full swing that summer and Atlanta’s anticipation was high. The Atlanta Journal had a story about how to give a Beatle haircut. At a pre–concert press conference Mayor Ivan Allen gave the Beatles the keys […]
He created the pause that refreshes. John Stith Pemberton was born in Knoxville, Georgia in 1831 and grew up in Rome. In 1850, he graduated from a College of Herbal Medicine in Macon and then went to pharmacy school in Philadelphia. Returning to Georgia, Pemberton set up shop as a druggist in Columbus. During the […]
It was the first time that African-American soldiers fought in the Civil War in Georgia. On this day in 1864, the 14th United States Colored Troops, mostly former slaves, fought off a Confederate cavalry attack near Dalton. Later, the 44th U.S. Colored troops were protecting the railroad through Dalton. Confederate General John Bell Hood attacked, […]
On August 14, 1900, cloaked in darkness, a group of Elberton citizens toppled the town’s Civil War monument. The next day, they buried it. These were not anti–Confederate activists. On the contrary, Elberton, like many Southern towns in the 1890s, wanted to honor the lost cause. It also wanted to promote its new granite industry […]
The women of Georgia finally got the right to vote on this day in 1921 when Governor Thomas Hardwick signed the act that made it official. The suffrage movement had been slow to gain ground in the South. Many women joined men in arguing that there was no more important job than wife and mother, […]
How much would you pay to kill a pest? On this day in 1909, the Georgia General Assembly formally asked the U.S. Congress for a $5 million prize to the first person to eliminate the boll weevil. This was six years before the cotton–consuming pest even appeared in Georgia. Cotton had been Georgia’s premier staple […]
Sometimes even the best politicians can make big mistakes. President Franklin Roosevelt took a risk on this day in 1938 in Barnesville, Georgia. Giving a speech, he openly campaigned against Georgia Senator Walter George, who was sitting directly behind him. Running for re–election, George had become an outspoken opponent of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. The […]
On this day in 1774, revolutionaries were plotting at Tondee’s Tavern in Savannah. Thirty men, calling themselves the “Sons of Liberty,” gathered to plan Georgia’s opposition to British colonial policy. This was Georgia’s first participation in what would become the American Revolution. Nine months earlier a group in Boston protested British policies by throwing 342 […]
