Metro Atlanta

The Bell Bomber plant transformed Marietta—and helped the Allies win World War II. On this day in 1942, construction began on the Bell Aircraft Corporation plant that built more than 600 B-29s during the war. The Roosevelt administration wanted to build aircraft away from the coast, and Atlanta was a prime location. Cobb County boosters […]

He was valedictorian of his high school class but the University of Georgia wouldn’t let him in. Hamilton Holmes was born in 1941 in Atlanta, the grandson of a doctor. After Holmes’ 1959 graduation from Atlanta’s Henry McNeal Turner High School, Jesse Hill of the NAACP recruited him and fellow Turner grad Charlayne Hunter to […]

He holds the dubious distinction of having been thrown out of more ballgames than anyone in baseball history—but few managers ever won more games. Bobby Cox was born in Oklahoma in 1941 and played two years for the New York Yankees before beginning his managerial career in the minor leagues. The Atlanta Braves hired him […]

Joseph Souter was born in Atlanta on this day in 1940. After meeting disc jockey Bill Lowery, he shortened his name to Joe South. He played in Lowery’s house band at National Recording Corporation in Atlanta. So did Ray Stevens and Jerry Reed. His first success came writing songs for other performers: “Untie Me” for […]

It was one of the most popular movies ever made and is forever linked to the state of Georgia. Gone With the Wind producer David O. Selznick had worried that Civil War movies usually bombed at the box office, and making the movie itself had been a mammoth undertaking. Selznick interviewed 1400 actors and conducted […]

He was the second-highest ranking Georgian in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and fought in every major battle but was court-martialed for neglect of duty. Lafayette McLaws was born in Augusta in 1821. A West Point graduate, he served in the Mexican War but resigned his commission to fight for the Confederacy. McLaws rose quickly […]

Here’s something for Georgians to look forward to — if you plan on being around 6,000 years from now. In 1936, a new phrase was born — time capsule, thanks to Oglethorpe University president Thornwell Jacobs. Motivated by the opening of the pyramids, Jacobs proposed collecting as much of modern society as possible and sealing […]

It is still one of the most popular films ever made, and its romanticized view of the Old South became firmly established in the popular imagination. Gone with the Wind was based on Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and the film’s completion was miraculous in itself. It took 140 days, 5 directors, and 13 writers—including […]

She was a non-conformist before that became stylish. Eliza Frances “Fanny” Andrews was born in Washington, Georgia, in 1840. Among the first students to attend LaGrange Female College, she was fluent in both Latin and French. She was fiercely independent. Though her father was a staunch Unionist, Andrews was an equally strong secessionist. As her […]

Eastern Airlines flew into the sunset in 1991, but it helped make Atlanta the transportation and commercial capital of the South. The airline began life as Pitcairn Aviation in 1927, carrying airmail for the government along an eastern route that connected New York to Florida via Atlanta. The company became Eastern Air Transport in 1930, […]