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Winner of two 2013 Emmy Awards from the Southeast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences

Today in Georgia History
is a joint collaboration of the Georgia Historical Society & Georgia Public Broadcasting.

18th Century

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January 17, 1796

William Washington Gordon

Georgia and its cotton industry may well have gone off the tracks if it hadn’t been for William Washington Gordon.

In 1835, Gordon was instrumen...
January 28, 1791

Mary Telfair

Southern benefactor she was, Southern belle she was not. She nurtured the oldest public art museum in the South.

Mary Telfair was born in Augusta on...
January 27, 1785

University of Georgia Chartered

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." So said Jam...
May 16, 1777

Button Gwinnett – Lachlan McIntosh Duel

His John Hancock is rarer than John Hancock’s.

Born in England in 1735, Button Gwinnett came to Savannah 30 years later. He bought St. Catherineâ€...
December 16, 1769

Jesse Mercer

He wrote the section of Georgia’s constitution that guarantees religious liberty to its citizens.

Jesse Mercer was born in North Carolina in 1769 a...
December 08, 1765

Eli Whitney

King Cotton wound up owing Eli Whitney a lot.

Born in 1765 in Massachusetts, the unemployed Yale graduate came South for a teaching job. When that d...
November 22, 1754

Abraham Baldwin

A theology degree from Yale led to chaplaincy in the Army for New England-born Abraham Baldwin. After the war, he followed his friend Nathanael Greene to Georg...
May 07, 1738

George Whitefield

One of the most popular preachers in England and America in the 18th century first arrived in Savannah on this day in 1738.

George Whitefield was bo...
December 02, 1737

John Wesley

John Wesley lost his labor of love when he came to Georgia.

The founder of the Methodist Church was born in England in 1703, becoming a strict man o...