With fires burning brightly, this day was still one of the darkest in Atlanta’s history. Atlanta was the gateway through which most of the traffic passed between the south Atlantic seaboard and the regions to the west, and the city became a major prize during the Civil War. Sherman captured the city in September after […]
He is the only person in the United States ever executed for war crimes. Hartmann Heinrich Wirz –“Henry”—was born in Switzerland in 1823. He was practicing medicine in Louisiana when the Civil War began. Wirz was eventually assigned to the staff of General John Winder, who was in charge of Confederate prisoner of war camps. […]
Anyone who has ever had surgery owes him of debt of thanks. Crawford Long was born in Danielsville, Georgia in 1815 and graduated from the University of Georgia. While getting his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, he witnessed firsthand the excruciating pain of patients undergoing surgery, and the crude methods used to alleviate […]
He was one of the most powerful Americans of the 20th century and served in public office for more than half of it. Richard Brevard Russell, Jr., born in Winder in 1897, graduated from the University of Georgia’s Law School. He immediately entered politics, winning election to the state legislature at 23. At 33, he […]
War can make or break a man. The Civil War made John Brown Gordon. Born in Upson County in 1832, he was managing his father’s coalmines in northwest Georgia when the war began. Although he lacked any military experience, Gordon was elected captain of the Raccoon Roughs, a company of mountain men, and he rose […]
She was partially deaf, suffered from depression, and had no children of her own, yet she founded the Girl Scouts of America. Juliette Gordon Low was born into wealth in Savannah in 1860. Two accidents in her twenties left her partially deaf and led to bouts of depression. At 26, Gordon married William Low, a […]
Can you imagine Saturday afternoons in autumn without college football in Georgia? It almost happened. On this day in 1897, UGA player Richard Von Gammon was fatally injured in a game with the University of Virginia. There had been a nationwide call for a ban on the violent sport, and Von Gammon’s death galvanized football’s […]
It was October and the trees were golden…and not just the trees. Benjamin Parks was walking through the woods of north Georgia when he kicked a stone. There were lots of stones in the woods, but the color of this one caught Parks’ eye. It turned out to be gold. Five other people claimed to […]
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 […]
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 […]
