January 22

Theodore Roosevelt’s great-great-grandfather was Georgia’s first chief executive.

Archibald Bulloch was born in Charleston in 1730 and moved to Georgia in 1758. When the revolutionary crisis began, Bulloch became an outspoken leader of the Liberty Party that championed American rights. He served as president of Georgia’s Provincial Congress that met in 1775 to address the growing problems with England. He was in Philadelphia as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress.

Bulloch’s leadership and bravery in 1776 were unsurpassed: he was elected president of Georgia’s Council of Safety, arrested Royal Governor James Wright when British warships arrived in Savannah, led the expedition that drove the British off Tybee Island, and became Georgia’s first president and commander in chief.

Bulloch died in 1777, but Georgia took its place among the independent United States in part because of his exemplary leadership after he became president of Georgia’s Revolutionary Council of Safety on January 22, 1776, today in Georgia History.