Hoagy Carmichael. Ray Charles. Two musicians, one from Indiana, one from Georgia, with at least one wonderful thing in common: “Georgia on My Mind.” In 1930, Carmichael wrote the music and Stuart Gorrell the lyrics to a song some think is about Carmichael’s sister Georgia—the lyrics are ambiguous enough to be about a woman or […]
Georgia began as an idea, the brainchild of James Oglethorpe and several other Englishmen who wanted to establish a new British settlement between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers, on land claimed by both South Carolina and Spain. The new colony needed official blessing, and Oglethorpe and his associates—who became the Georgia Trustees—petitioned the Privy Council, […]
The President was on Sea Island on this day 2004 for the annual Group of 8, or G-8 Summit. President George W. Bush welcomed the leaders of the world’s industrial democracies– Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom — as they met for three days to discuss a host of issues. The […]
He was hailed as a bold new Southern writer in the Southern Gothic tradition, with his books populated by strange characters in a brutal and darkly humorous South. It was a world Harry Crews knew well. Born in Bacon County in 1935 to poor farmers, Crews grew up with a violent and drunken uncle who […]
He was known as Georgia’s education governor, though he never attended college himself. Joseph Terrell was born in Meriwether County in 1861 and became a lawyer by studying with a Greenville, Ga., attorney. At 23, he won a seat in the Georgia House and was in the Georgia Senate before he turned 30. Terrell supported […]
Georgians might have been speaking with a different accent had it not been for a key Patriot victory in Augusta during the American Revolution. In 1778, the British launched their southern campaign, hoping to break the stalemate in the northern states and rally loyalists to their cause. Savannah fell and later, Charleston. Augusta then became […]
He watched America being born and was its last king. On this day in 1738 at Windsor Castle, Frederick, the Prince of Wales, and his wife Princess Augusta had their first son, George William Frederick. In 1751, the Prince of Wales died. That put 12-year-old George in line for the throne, which he ascended as […]
On this date in 1962, 113 Georgians died at Orly Airport in Paris. It was the worst single airplane crash of that time—and it led to one of Atlanta’s cultural landmarks. The Air France jetliner crash killed 130 people—including 103 members of the Atlanta Art Association. Only the mid-air collision of two planes over New […]
Morehouse College and Atlanta University each once had a white president. John Hope changed that. Hope was born in Augusta in 1868 to a white father and free-born black mother. After graduating from Brown University, Hope taught first in Nashville. He married future black activist Lugenia Burns and moved to Atlanta to teach at Atlanta […]
Detractors called it the Chicken Noodle Network, but it revolutionized the way the world gets its news. Ted Turner launched the Cable News Network—CNN—in Atlanta as the world’s first 24-hour all news network. Turner had already revolutionized cable television by beaming Superstation TBS around the globe by satellite. Convinced there was a market for an […]
