Download (1)

Georgia History Timeline Project

  • Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin

    Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin
    Eli Whitney was born in Westboro, Massachusetts, on December 8, 1765. Young Eli showed an interest in mechanics and engineering. While still in his teens, he developed a shop on his father's farm where he produced nails and other small items difficult to obtain during the American Revolution. He entered Yale during his twenties and received his degree in 1792.
  • University of Georgia founded

    University of Georgia founded
    Founded in 1785 as the United States' first state-chartered university, it is the oldest and second largest of Georgia's institutions of higher learning and along with the College of William and Mary and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill claims the title of the oldest public university in the United States.
  • Yazoo Land Fraud

    Yazoo Land Fraud
    The Yazoo land fraud is often conflated with the Pine Barrens speculation, another land scandal which took place in east Georgia at about the same time. In this case, the state's high-ranking officials were making multiple gifts of land grants for the same parcels, resulting in the issuance of grants totaling much more land than was available in the state of Georgia.
  • Dahlonega Gold Rush

    Dahlonega Gold Rush
    The Georgia Gold Rush was the second significant gold rush in the United States, and overshadowed the previous rush in North Carolina. It started in 1829 in present-day Lumpkin County near the county seat, Dahlonega, and soon spread through the North Georgia mountains, following the Georgia Gold Belt. By the early 1840s, gold became difficult to find. Many Georgia miners moved west when gold was found in the Sierra Nevada in 1848, starting the California Gold Rush.
  • Trail of Tears

    Trail of Tears
    In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects.
  • Worcester v. Georgia

    Worcester v. Georgia
    In the court case Worcester v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 1832 that the Cherokee Indians Samuel Worcester, a missionary, defied Georgia through peaceful means to protest the state's handling of Cherokee lands. He was arrested several times as a result. With a team of lawyers, Worcester filed a lawsuit against the state that went all the way to the Supreme Court, where he finally won his case. Samuel Worcester constituted a nation holding distinct sovereign powers.
  • Henry McNeal Turner

    Henry McNeal Turner
    Henry McNeal Turner was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Georgia, later rising to the rank of bishop.
  • Compromise of 1850

    Compromise of 1850
    The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War (1846–48).
  • Georgia Platform

    Georgia Platform
    The Georgia Platform was a statement executed by a Georgia Convention in Milledgeville, Georgia on December 10, 1850 in response to the Compromise of 1850. Supported by Unionists, the document affirmed the acceptance of the Compromise as a final resolution of the sectional slavery issues while declaring that no further assaults on Southern rights by the North would be acceptable.
  • Missouri Compromise

    Missouri Compromise
    The Missouri Compromise was effectively repealed by the Kansas–Nebraska Act, submitted to Congress by Stephen A. Douglas in January 1854. Although already superseded by the Kansas–Nebraska Act, the Supreme Court indicated that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional in the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling.
  • Kansas Nebraska Act

    Kansas Nebraska Act
    The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 (10 Stat. 277) created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The initial purpose of the Kansas–Nebraska Act was to open up many thousands of new farms and make feasible a Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad.
  • Booker .T. Washington

    Booker .T. Washington
    Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants.
  • Watson and the Populists

    Watson and the Populists
    Thomas Edward Watson was born on his family's small plantation outside the village of Thomson, Georgia on September 5, 1856.Watson's primary education consisted of course work at a small school in Thomson. In 1872 he entered Mercer University. He was known as a divisive and racist politician.
  • Dred Scoot Case

    Dred Scoot Case
    PRINT CITE
    In March 1857, in one of the most controversial events preceding the American Civil War (1861-65), the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford. The case had been brought before the court by Dred Scott, a slave who had lived with his owner in a free state before returning to the slave state of Missouri.
  • Election of 1860

    Election of 1860
    The United States presidential election of 1860 was the 19th quadrennial presidential election. The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War.
  • Period: to

    Alonzo Herndon

    Alonzo Franklin Herndon June 26, 1858 Walton County, Georgia July 21, 1927 was a businessman and the founder and president of the Atlanta Family Life Insurance Company Atlanta Life.
  • Union Blockade of Georgia

    Union Blockade of Georgia
    The blockade was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in April 1861, and required the monitoring of 3,500 miles of Atlantic and Gulf coastline, including 12 major ports, notably New Orleans and Mobile.
  • Battle of Antietam

    Battle of Antietam
    The Battle of Antietam /ænˈtiːtəm/, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the South, fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Union soil.
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    Emancipation Proclamation
    The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. In a single stroke, it changed the federal legal status of more than 3 million enslaved persons in the designated areas of the South from "slave" to "free".
  • Battle of Gettysburg

    Battle of Gettysburg
    The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (July 1–July 3, 1863), was the largest battle of the American Civil War as well as the largest battle ever fought in North America, involving around 85,000 men in the Union’s Army of the Potomac under Major General George Gordon Meade and approximately 75,000 in the Confederacy’s Army.
  • Battle of Chickamauga

    Battle of Chickamauga
    The battle was fought between the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans and the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Gen. Braxton Bragg, and was named for Chickamauga Creek, which meanders near the battle area in northwest Georgia (and ultimately flows into the Tennessee River about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) northeast of downtown Chattanooga).
  • Andersonville Prison Camp

    Andersonville Prison Camp
    Andersonville Prison Camp summary: Known officially at Ft. Sumter, Andersonville held the largest prison population in the entire Confederacy.During the beginning of 1864, the men in command of the Confederacy saw a need for another prison to house their prisoners of war.
  • Sherman's March to the Sea

    Sherman's March to the Sea
    Sherman's March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the military Savannah Campaign in the American Civil War, conducted through Georgia from November 15 to December 21, 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army.
  • Thirtenth Amendment

    Thirtenth Amendment
    The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865.
  • Freedman's Beruau

    Freedman's Beruau
    Image result for freedmen's bureauequalityofblackeducation.weebly.com
    The U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, popularly known as the Freedmen's Bureau, was established in 1865 by Congress to help former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War (1861-65).
  • WEB DuBois

    WEB DuBois
    Racism was the main target of Du Bois's polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment.
  • Period: to

    WEB DuBois

    Du Bois rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor.
  • Web Dubois

    Web Dubois
    February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor.
  • Fourteenth Amendment

    Fourteenth Amendment
    The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War.
  • Period: to

    John Lugenia Hope

    John Hope John and Lugenia Burns Hope, pictured with their sons, John and Edward, were leaders in Atlanta's black community during the early 1900s. John Hope served as president of both Morehouse College and Atlanta University, and Lugenia Burns Hope founded Atlanta's Neighborhood Union.
    Hope Family
    was an important African American educator and race leader of the early twentieth century. In 1906 he became the first black president of Morehouse College—the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr.—i
  • Fifthteenth Amendment

    Fifthteenth Amendment
    The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
  • Atlanta Braves

    Atlanta Braves
    The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball franchise based in Atlanta since 1966, after having originated and played for many decades in Boston and then having subsequently played in Milwaukee for a little more than a decade.
  • International Cotton Eposition

    International Cotton Eposition
    A million people attended, generating between $220,000 and $250,000 in receipts, split evenly between sales and gate receipts.In February 1881, the chamber of commerce proposed and a corporation was organized under the general law.In the late nineteenth century, fairs and expositions were an important way for cities to attract visitors. Located in Atlanta's Piedmont Park, the structure was 570 feet long, 126 feet wide, and two stories hig
  • Leo Frank Case

    Leo Frank Case
    The Leo Frank case is one of the most notorious and highly publicized cases in the legal annals of Georgia.The consensus of researchers on the subject is that Frank was wrongly convicted.Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884 – August 17, 1915) was a Jewish-American.
  • Period: to

    Eugene Talamaga

    Eugene Talamaga critics in the legislature attempted to rein in the freewheeling and outspoken Talmadge.
  • William B. Hartsfield

    William B. Hartsfield
    William B. Hartsfield was a man of humble origins who became one of the greatest mayors of Atlanta.In 1936 Hartsfield defeated the aging incumbent mayor, James L. Key. When Hartsfield took office in January 1937, Atlanta was in poor financial condition.
  • Plessy v.s Forgose

    Plessy v.s Forgose
    This 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.That petitioner was a citizen of the United States and a resident of the State of Louisiana,
  • Bengamin Mays

    Bengamin Mays
    Benjamin Elijah Mays was born in 1894 in the small town of Ninety Six, South Carolina, the youngest of eight children; his parents were tenant farmers and former slaves. Given this history and its impact on the development of his parents, Mays’ childhood was instrumental in creating the political endeavors that he would later pursue.
  • Alonzo Herndo

    Alonzo Herndo
    The ambitious Herndon invested heavily in Auburn Avenue real estate and in 1905, he paid $140 for a small burial association. It eventually became the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, which made him Atlanta’s first black millionaire.
  • 1906 Atlanta Riot

    1906 Atlanta Riot
    On September 22, 1906, Atlanta newspapers report that race is out of control.Separation of the races is the only radical solution of the negro problem in this country.By 1900 the population of Atlanta had more than doubled to 89,872 from its 1880 level.But despite the accomplishments of the black community, Atlanta remained one of the most segregated cities in the South.
  • Ivan Allen Jr.

    Ivan Allen Jr.
    Convinced that the South could never thrive economically under segregation, Allen supported the demands of African Americans for their accommodation at public facilities.
  • Herman Talmadge

    Herman Talmadge
    Herman Eugene Talmadge was born on August 9, 1913, in Telfair County. Talmadge was the only son of Eugene and Mattie Thurmond Talmadge.After practicing law for several years, Talmadge joined the navy, where he saw extensive combat duty in the South Pacific during World War II and eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant commander.
    Herman Talmadge. He married Katherine Williamson in 1937;
  • World War 1

    World War 1
    In late June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia.By the time World War I ended in the defeat of the Central Powers in November 1918, more than 9 million soldiers had been killed and 21 million more wounded.
  • Period: to

    World War 1

    The world’s first global conflict, the “Great War” pitted the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire against the Allied forces of Great Britain, the United States, France, Russia, Italy and Japan.
  • County Unit System

    County Unit System
    The county unit system was established in 1917 when the Georgia legislature, overwhelmingly dominated by the Democratic Party, passed the Neill Primary Act.In effect, the system of allotting votes by county, with little regard for population differences, allowed rural counties to control Georgia elections by minimizing the impact of the growing urban centers, particularly Atlanta. All 159 counties were classified according to population
  • Martin Luther King Jr.

    Martin Luther King Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs.
  • Period: to

    Great Depression

    The depression originated in the United States, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, and became worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929
  • Hamilton Holmes

    Hamilton Holmes
    Hamilton E. Holmes. Hamilton E. Holmes (8 July 1941 – 26 October 1995) was an American orthopedic physician. He and Charlayne Hunter-Gault were the first two African-American students admitted to the University of Georgia.
  • 1946 Governor's Race

    1946 Governor's Race
    Georgia's "three governors controversy" of 1946-47, which began with the death of governor-elect Eugene Talmadge, was one of the more bizarre political spectacles in the annals of American politics.
  • Brown v. Board of Education

    Brown v. Board of Education
    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.
  • Maynard Jackson Elected Mayor

    Maynard Jackson Elected Mayor
    During Jackson's first term as the mayor, much progress was made in improving race relations in and around Atlanta. As mayor, he led the beginnings and much of the progress on several huge public-works projects in Atlanta and its region.
  • 1956 State Flag

    1956 State Flag
    The current flag of the state of Georgia was adopted on May 8, 2003. The flag bears three stripes consisting of red-white-red, and a blue canton containing a ring of 13 white stars encompassing the state's coat of arms in gold.
  • Student Non-Violet Coordinating Comittee

    Student Non-Violet Coordinating Comittee
    The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded in April 1960, by young people who had emerged as leaders of the sit-in protest movement initiated on February 1 of that year by four black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina. Although Martin Luther King, Jr. and others had hoped that SNCC would serve as the youth wing of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),
  • Sibley Commision

    Sibley Commision
    Despite Sibley's efforts to minimize support for resistance, 60 percent of witnesses favored total segregation. On April 28, 1960, Sibley, ignoring the results of the hearings, presented the commission's report to state leaders, in which he recommended accepting Hooper's decision while offering several measures that would allow schools to remain largely segregated. The General Assembly was scheduled to make its final decision during the January 1961 session, and Sibley spent the intervening eigh
  • The Albany Movement

    The Albany Movement
    The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, on November 17, 1961, by local activists, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
  • Atlanta Hawks

    Atlanta Hawks
    The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member team of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division.
  • March on Washington

    March on Washington
    The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the March on Washington, or The Great March on Washington as styled in a sound recording released after the event.
  • Cival Rights Act

    Cival Rights Act
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States.
  • Atlanta Falcons

    Atlanta Falcons
    The Atlanta Falcons began their first NFL season in the NFL Eastern Conference, playing a "swing schedule", consisting of playing every other team once, in order to make up for the disparity of an odd number of teams
  • John and Lugenia Hope

    John and Lugenia Hope
    John and Lugenia Burns Hope, pictured with their sons, John and Edward, were leaders in Atlanta's black community during the early 1900s. John Hope served as president of both Morehouse College and Atlanta University, and Lugenia Burns Hope founded Atlanta's Neighborhood Union. Hope Familysocial decay in Atlanta's black neighborhoods, Hope, along with several other women, formed the Neighborhood Union in 1908. The group elected Hope, a commanding but calm and expert administrator,
  • Capital moved to Louisville

    Capital moved to Louisville
    Louisville is a city in Jefferson County, Georgia, United States. It was an early capital of Georgia and is the county seat of Jefferson County. It is located southwest of Augusta on the Ogeechee River, and its population was 2,712 at the 2000 census.