He was one of the youngest persons ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929 as Michael Luther King. His father later changed their names. He grew up on Auburn Avenue near Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his grandfather and father were pastors. King graduated from Morehouse […]
A Ramblin’ Wreck is more than just a snappy nickname for Georgia Tech. It speaks to the very reason the school was created in the first place: to help bring the Industrial Revolution to Georgia. The Georgia School of Technology began with $65,000 in state funding and 84 students. At first, the school was narrowly […]
In the early morning hours of this day in 1958, 50 sticks of dynamite exploded at the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, Atlanta’s oldest and most prominent synagogue. Though no one was injured, the city’s Jewish population feared the rise of antisemitism reminiscent of the Leo Frank lynching. The temple was the fourth southern synagogue to be […]
He made history when he flew solo across the Atlantic. On this day in 1927, just months after his historic flight, Charles Lindbergh arrived in Atlanta for Lindbergh Day. The “Lone Eagle” came to Atlanta thanks to city alderman and aviation enthusiast William Hartsfield. Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis – the same plane […]
He won the first Heisman Trophy ever awarded to a southern college football player. But Frank Sinkwich might never have played at the University of Georgia if a recruiter hadn’t stopped for gas. Sinkwich was born in 1920 in Croatia and grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. UGA Assistant Coach Bill Hartman was recruiting another player […]
He came from Poland to fight in the American Revolution and is one of only seven people to be granted honorary U.S. citizenship. Casimir Pulaski was born an aristocrat in Warsaw in 1745. He first led men in battle as a freedom fighter in Poland. After meeting Ben Franklin in France, he came to America […]
It doesn’t get around much anymore, but the Liberty Bell came to Atlanta on this date in 1895 for the Cotton States Exposition. It almost didn’t. The famously-cracked, 2,000-pound peeler left Philadelphia on seven trips between 1885 and 1915. Each time, it came home with more cracks. Turns out, the men hired to guard the […]
She dedicated her life to education but had only one year of formal schooling herself. Martha Berry was born in Alabama and moved to Rome, Georgia, as a baby. Home-schooled by a governess, Martha Berry attended finishing school in Baltimore for less than a year. Back home in northwest Georgia, a chance encounter with two […]
Clashes with the Ku Klux Klan began Joseph Lowery’s lifelong fight for equality. The man who became one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, chief lieutenants was born in Huntsville, Alabama. Early encounters with bigotry would shape the direction of his life as a Methodist minister. Inspired by Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Lowery […]
When James Oglethorpe and the English colonists arrived in Georgia in 1733, Tomochichi was here to greet them. It was his artful diplomacy between the English settlers and the native population that ensured Georgia’s peaceful beginnings. Tomochichi was chief of the Yamacraw tribe, which he created from a group of Creek and Yamasee natives. They […]
