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 […]
It may be the Jordan River, but Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff’s name was pronounced “Jerden.” Born in 1944, Hamilton Jordan always loved politics. He was voted “most likely to become governor” in high school. He got close. Literally. After interning for Senator Richard Russell, he worked on Jimmy Carter’s failed try for Georgia governor […]
“Peachtree Bart” was the Atlanta Falcons answer to Broadway Joe and he was just what the struggling team needed. Steve Bartkowski was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1952 and was a two-sport star at the University of California. The Atlanta Falcons made the All-American the first pick in the 1975 draft—ahead of Walter Payton—and […]
As an actor, he was defined by two roles: the eldest of Ben Cartwright’s sons and the chief of medicine at a San Francisco hospital. Pernell Roberts was born in Waycross in 1928. He attended Georgia Tech and the University of Maryland with a two-year stint in the Marines in between. Roberts made his stage […]
At a time when slavery thrived in the American colonies, Georgia, you may be surprised, was alone in banning it. But it wasn’t a moral decision. The Georgia Trustees prohibited slavery because it conflicted with their vision of small landowners prospering from their own labor. They also wanted Georgia to serve as a military buffer […]
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. Catherine’s Island and became a planter. In 1776 he was elected commander of Georgia’s Continental Army Battalion during the American Revolution. When political opponents- including Lachlan McIntosh- challenged his election, he […]
George Wallace he most definitely was not. Carl Sanders was born in 1925 in Augusta. He served in the Air Force in World War II, then returned to the University of Georgia for his law degree. He entered politics on the fast track: elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1954, the state Senate […]
It was the first major battle of the Atlanta Campaign during the Civil War. The Battle of Resaca began 75 miles northwest of Atlanta on this day in 1864. Joe Johnston’s Confederate Army of Tennessee had wintered in Dalton after its defeat at Chattanooga the previous November. Sherman moved south into Georgia in May with […]
The Mexican War in 1848 triggered new and thorny issues in a country already beset with divisions between North and South. The war added 500,000 square miles of new western territory. Would the new territory be slave or free, and who would decide? Could Congress ban slavery from new territories or would settlers decide for […]
As first president, George Washington was the living symbol of the independent United States. After his inauguration, he embarked on a grand tour designed to cement allegiance to the fledgling American nation. He toured the New England states first and then traveled south. In May 1791, Washington came to Georgia for the first and only […]
