On August 30, 1979, some bad news broke for President Jimmy Carter. It involved Carter’s fending off a rabbit on a fishing trip in southwest Georgia back in April. What appeared to be an amusing story in an outdoorsman’s life came to symbolize a perception by some of an ineffective Carter presidency. Carter was alone […]
A Georgia hero was born in Atlanta on this day in 1942. Joseph Maxwell Cleland — “Max” — grew up in Lithonia. While enrolled at Emory, Cleland joined the Army and went to Vietnam. On April 8, 1968, Capt. Cleland was serving in the 1st Cavalry Division at Khe Sanh when he lost both legs […]
Sometimes even the best politicians can make big mistakes. President Franklin Roosevelt took a risk on this day in 1938 in Barnesville, Georgia. Giving a speech, he openly campaigned against Georgia Senator Walter George, who was sitting directly behind him. Running for re–election, George had become an outspoken opponent of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. The […]
The Democratic Party came to Atlanta in 1988 to choose its champion to take on Vice President George Bush, the shoo-in republican nominee as President Reagan’s heir apparent. By the time Democrats gathered at the Omni in Atlanta for four days in July 1988, former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis had won a hotly contested nomination […]
Jimmy who? Jimmy Carter, the original “Washington outsider” to run for the presidency, was still governor of Georgia when he announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in December 1974. Constitutionally barred from a second term as governor and still young at 50, Carter thought his outsider status, strong principles, and reform agenda […]
Abraham Lincoln was not the first Republican presidential candidate. It was Georgia native John Frémont who ran four years before Lincoln. Born in Savannah in 1813, Fremont graduated from the College of Charleston. South Carolina diplomat Joel Poinsett got Fremont appointed to the Army’s topographical engineers, and his life’s work was set. Fremont surveyed and […]
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 […]
Jimmy Carter first ran for governor in 1966 as a moderate, losing to Lester Maddox. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. In 1970, Carter ran as the candidate of the ordinary guy, making not-so-subtle racial appeals to white conservative Georgians. In the Democratic primary, he denounced former Governor Carl Sanders as a crony of […]
When the Cherokees were removed from Georgia along the infamous Trail Of Tears, the man in charge was General Winfield Scott. The man known as old “Fuss and Feathers” was the foremost American soldier between the Revolution and the Civil War. Born in Virginia in 1786, Scott served as a general in three wars. He […]
It was the first steamship in the world to cross the Atlantic. The steamship Savannah was built in 1818 in New York as a sailing packet but was converted to a steamship after a Savannah shipping firm committed to buy it for transatlantic service. The ship was a 320-ton hybrid, equipped with a steam engine, […]
