Study Guide for Proficiency Exam in Georgia History

Savannah, Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville, and Atlanta.

(22 December 1696[1] - 30 June 1785) was a British general, Member of Parliament, philanthropist, and founder of the colony of Georgia. As a social reformer, he hoped to resettle Britain's poor, especially those in debtors' prisons, in the New World.[2]

is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia.[3] A strategic port city in the American Revolution and during the American Civil War,[4] Savannah is today an industrial center and an important Atlantic seaport. It is Georgia's fifth-largest city and third-largest metropolitan area.

(May 8, 1716 - November 20, 1785) was an American colonial lawyer and jurist who was the last British Royal Governor of the Province of Georgia. He was the only Royal Governor of the Thirteen Colonies to regain control of his colony during the American Revolutionary War.

(December 8, 1765 - January 8, 1825) was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South.[1] Whitney's invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States. Despite the social and economic impact of his invention, Whitney lost many profits in legal battles over patent infringement for the cotton gin. Thereafter, he turned his attention into securing contracts with the government in the manufacture of muskets for the newly formed United States Army. He continued making arms and inventing until his death in 1825.

(February 14, 1779) was a major encounter in the back country of Georgia during the American Revolutionary War. It was fought in Wilkes County about eight miles (13 km) from present-day Washington, Georgia.

The Battle of Bloody Marsh took place on July 7, 1742 (new style) between Spanish and British forces on St. Simons Island, part of the Province of Georgia, resulting in a victory for the British.

Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester and held that the Georgia criminal statute that prohibited non-Native Americans from being present on Native American lands without a license from the state was unconstitutional.

(May 24, 1850 - December 23, 1889) was a journalist and orator who helped reintegrate the states of the former Confederacy into the Union after the American Civil War. Grady encouraged the industrialization of the South.[2]

(April 15, 1821 - November 30, 1894), often referred to as Joe Brown, was the 42nd Governor of Georgia from 1857 to 1865, and a U.S. Senator from 1880 to 1891. Governor Brown was a leading secessionist in 1861, taking his state out of the Union and into the Confederacy. A former Whig, and a firm believer in states' rights, he defied the national government's wartime policies. He resisted the Confederate military draft, and tried to keep as many soldiers at home as possible (to fight off invaders).[1] He denounced Confederate President Jefferson Davis as an incipient tyrant. Brown challenged Confederate impressment of animals, goods, and slaves. Several other governors followed his lead.

(July 2, 1810 - December 15, 1885) was an American and Confederate political leader, Whig Party senator from Georgia, a founding father of the Confederacy, its first Secretary of State, and a Confederate general in the American Civil War of 1861-1865. He feuded bitterly with Confederate President Jefferson Davis. According to Jacob S. Clawson, he was "a bullish politician whose blend of acerbic wit, fiery demeanor, and political tact aroused the full spectrum of emotions from his constituents and colleagues....[he] could not balance his volatile personality with his otherwise keen political skill."[1]

fought September 19-20, 1863,[1] marked the end of a Union offensive in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia called the Chickamauga Campaign. The battle was the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theater of the American Civil War and involved the second highest number of casualties in the war following the Battle of Gettysburg. It was the first major battle of the war that was fought in Georgia.

was fought on June 27, 1864, during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the most significant frontal assault launched by Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman against the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, ending in a tactical defeat for the Union forces. Strategically, however, the battle failed to deliver the result that the Confederacy desperately needed--namely a halt to Sherman's advance on Atlanta.

a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp during the American Civil War. Most of the site lies in southwestern Macon County, adjacent to the east side of the town of Andersonville. As well as the former prison, the site also contains the Andersonville National Cemetery and the National Prisoner of War Museum.

(April 17, 1884 - August 17, 1915) was a Jewish-American factory superintendent in Atlanta, Georgia who was convicted of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan. His legal case, and lynching two years later, became the focus of social, regional, political, and racial concerns - particularly antisemitism. Various plays, films, and books have been written on or about the case over the years, such as the films The Gunsaulus Mystery in 1921 and They Won't Forget in 1937, the TV miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan in 1988, and the Broadway musical Parade in 1998. Frank was posthumously pardoned in 1986 by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, which said that its action was performed "[w]ithout attempting to address the question of guilt or innocence". The consensus of researchers on the subject is that Frank was wrongly convicted.

was a mass civil disturbance in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), which began the evening of September 22 and lasted until September 24, 1906. It was characterized at the time by Le Petit Journal and other media outlets as a "racial massacre of negroes".[1] The death toll of the conflict was at least 25 African Americans[2] along with two confirmed European Americans;[3] Unofficial reports ranged from 10 -100 African Americans and 2 European Americans were killed during the riots. The main cause of the race riot was newspaper-publicized rapes of four white women in separate incidents by African American men.

(March 25, 1925 - August 3, 1964) was a American writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, she wrote 16 novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. Her writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.

was established in 1837 at the intersection of two railroad lines, and the city rose from the ashes of the Civil War to become a national center of commerce. In the decades following the Civil Rights Movement, during which the city earned a reputation as "too busy to hate" for the progressive views of its citizens and leaders,[12] Atlanta attained international prominence. Atlanta is the primary transportation hub of the Southeastern United States, via highway, railroad, and air, with Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport being the world's busiest airport since 1998.[13][14][15][16]

In December 1946, Eugene Talmadge, the governor-elect of Georgia, died. The state constitution did not specify who would assume the governorship in such a situation. Eventually a ruling by the Supreme Court of Georgia settled the matter.

(born October 1, 1924) is an American politician and author who served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. He was awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Carter Center. Carter, a Democrat raised in rural Georgia, was a peanut farmer who served two terms as a Georgia State Senator, from 1963 to 1967, and one as the Governor of Georgia, from 1971 to 1975. He was elected President in 1976, defeating incumbent President Gerald Ford in a relatively close election, the Electoral College margin of 57 votes was the closest at that time since 1916.

was a counterculture underground newspaper based in Atlanta, Georgia from 1968 to 1976.[1] It was founded by New Left activists from Emory University and members of the Southern Student Organizing Committee, an offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society. Founding editors included Tom and Stephanie Coffin, Howard Romaine and Gene Guerrero Jr.[2] The first issue appeared March 8, 1968, and within 6 months it was publishing weekly. By 1970 it was the third largest weekly newspaper in Georgia with a paid circulation of 22,000 copies. The paper subscribed to Liberation News Service, a leftist news collective. The office of The Great Speckled Bird at the north end of Piedmont Park (240 Westminster Dr.) was firebombed and destroyed on May 6, 1972 after the paper published an exposé of the mayor of Atlanta. A quote from The Bird: "These are our opinions and we are entitled to them, they are not written anywhere else. So, don't expect us to tell both sides of the story. The big newspapers, magazines, TV and radio do that all day long. Here you will hear our side of things."

(March 23, 1938 - June 23, 2003), was an American politician, a member of the Democratic Party, and the first African American mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, serving three terms (1974-82, 1990-94). Jackson's grandfather was the civil rights leader John Wesley Dobbs. His mother, Irene Dobbs Jackson, was a Professor of French at Spelman College in Atlanta. Jackson himself graduated from Morehouse College in 1956 when he was only eighteen years old, where he sang in the Morehouse College Glee Club.[1] After attending the Boston University Law School for a short time, he held several jobs, including selling encyclopedias, before he decided to attend the North Carolina Central University Law School, from which he graduated in 1964. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

(November 8, 1900 - August 16, 1949) was an American author and journalist. One novel by Mitchell was published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel, Gone with the Wind, for which she won the National Book Award for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936[1] and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. In more recent years, a collection of Mitchell's girlhood writings and a novella she wrote as a teenager, Lost Laysen, have been published. A collection of articles written by Mitchell for The Atlanta Journal was republished in book form.

1895 was held at the current Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia. Nearly 800,000 visitors attended the event. The exposition was designed to promote the region to the world and showcase products and new technologies as well as to encourage trade with Latin America. The Cotton States and International Exposition featured exhibits from several states including various innovations in agriculture and technology. President Grover Cleveland presided over the opening of the exposition. But the event is best remembered for the both hailed and criticized "Atlanta compromise" speech given by Booker T. Washington on September 18, promoting racial cooperation.

(September 23, 1884 - December 21, 1946) was a Democratic politician who served two terms as the 67th Governor of Georgia from 1933 to 1937, and a third term from 1941 to 1943. Elected to a fourth term in November 1946, he died before his (January 1947) inauguration. To date only Joe Brown and Eugene Talmadge have been elected four times as Governor of Georgia.

(August 9, 1913 - March 21, 2002), was a Democratic American politician from the state of Georgia. He served as the 70th Governor of Georgia briefly in 1947 and again from 1948 to 1955. After leaving office Talmadge was elected to the U.S. Senate, serving from 1957 until 1981. Talmadge was born in McRae in Telfair County in south central Georgia, the only son of Eugene Talmadge, who served as Governor of Georgia during much of the 1930s and the 1940s. He earned a degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1936, where he had been a member of the Demosthenian Literary Society and Sigma Nu fraternity.

(December 9, 1848 - July 3, 1908) was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years. He spent the majority of his adult life in Atlanta working as an associate editor at the Atlanta Constitution. Harris led two professional lives: as the editor and journalist known as Joe Harris, he supported a vision of the New South with the editor Henry W. Grady (1880-1889), stressing regional and racial reconciliation after the Reconstruction era. As Joel Chandler Harris, fiction writer and folklorist, he wrote many 'Brer Rabbit' stories from the African-American oral tradition and helped to revolutionize literature in the process.[1]

(/tɪˈkʌmsə/;[1] February 8, 1820 - February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator and author. He served as a General in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861-65), for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the "scorched earth" policies that he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States.[2] Sherman served under General Ulysses S. Grant in 1862 and 1863 during the campaigns that led to the fall of the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River and culminated with the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of Tennessee. In 1864, Sherman succeeded Grant as the Union commander in the western theater of the war. He proceeded to lead his troops to the capture of the city of Atlanta, a military success that contributed to the re-election of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Sherman's subsequent march through Georgia and the Carolinas further undermined the Confederacy's ability to continue fighting. He accepted the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida in April 1865.

(February 11, 1812 - March 4, 1883) was an American politician from Georgia and Vice President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He also served as a U.S. Representative from Georgia (both before the Civil War and after Reconstruction) and as the 50th Governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883. He was an old Whig Party friend and ally of Abraham Lincoln. They met in the closing days of the Civil War but could not come to terms.[1]

(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. King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia (the Albany Movement), and helped organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama, that attracted national attention following television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history. On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. In 1965, he helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches, and the following year he and SCLC took the movement north to Chicago to work on segregated housing. In the final years of his life, King expanded his focus to include poverty and speak against the Vietnam War, alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled "Beyond Vietnam". In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971, and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in Washington State was also renamed for him. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

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). The organization was led by William G. Anderson, a local black Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. In December 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) became involved in assisting the Albany Movement with protests against racial segregation. The Albany Movement mobilized thousands of citizens and attracted nationwide attention, but failed to accomplish its goals because of a determined opposition. However, it was credited as a key lesson in strategy and tactics for the American Civil Rights Movement.[1]

(born March 12, 1932) is an American politician, diplomat, activist and pastor from Georgia. He has served as a Congressman from Georgia's 5th congressional district, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, and Mayor of Atlanta. He served as President of the National Council of Churches USA, was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and was a supporter and friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Since leaving political office on January 2, 1990,[1] Young has founded or served in a large number of organizations founded on public policy, political lobbying and international relations, with a special focus on Africa.

(September 30, 1915 - June 25, 2003), was an American politician who was the 75th Governor of the U.S. state of Georgia from 1967 to 1971. A populist Democrat, Maddox came to prominence as a staunch segregationist,[1] when he refused to serve black customers in his Atlanta restaurant, in defiance of the Civil Rights Act. Yet as Governor, he oversaw notable improvements in black employment. Later he served as Lieutenant Governor under Jimmy Carter.

(February 19, 1917 - September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts in a small town of the U.S. South. Her other novels have similar themes and most are set in the deep South. McCullers' oeuvre is often described as Southern Gothic and indicative of her southern roots. However, McCullers penned all of her work after leaving the South, and critics also describe her writing and eccentric characters as universal in scope. Her stories have been adapted to stage and film. A stagework of her novel The Member of the Wedding (1946), which captures a young girl's feelings at her brother's wedding, made a successful Broadway run in 1950-51.

(September 5, 1856 - September 26, 1922) was an American politician, attorney, newspaper editor, and writer from Georgia. In the 1890s Watson championed poor farmers as a leader of the Populist Party, articulating an agrarian political viewpoint while attacking business, bankers, railroads, Democratic President Grover Cleveland, and the Democratic Party. He was the nominee for vice president with William Jennings Bryan in 1896 on the Populist ticket (but there was a different vice presidential nominee on Bryan's Democratic ticket). Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1890, Watson pushed through legislation mandating Rural Free Delivery, the "biggest and most expensive endeavor" ever instituted by the U.S. postal service. Politically he was a leader on the left in the 1890s, calling on poor whites (and poor blacks) to unite against the elites. After 1900, however, he shifted to Nativist attacks on blacks and Catholics (and after 1914 on Jews). Two years prior to his death, he was elected to the United States Senate.

(born February 5, 1934), nicknamed "Hammer", or "Hammerin' Hank", is a retired American Major League Baseball (MLB) right fielder. He played 21 seasons for the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves in the National League (NL) and 2 seasons for the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League (AL), from 1954 through 1976. Aaron held the MLB record for career home runs for 33 years, and he still holds several MLB offensive records. He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973, and is one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times.[1] In 1999, The Sporting News ranked Aaron fifth on its "100 Greatest Baseball Players" list.

(born November 19, 1938[2]) is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the Cable News Network more popularly known as CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television. As a philanthropist, he is known for his $1 billion gift to support the United Nations, which created the United Nations Foundation, a public charity to broaden domestic support for the UN. Turner serves as Chairman of the United Nations Foundation board of directors.[3] Additionally, in 2001, Turner co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative with U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA). NTI is a non-partisan organisation dedicated to reducing global reliance on, and preventing the proliferation of, nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He currently serves as Co-Chairman on the Board of Directors. Turner's media empire began with his father's billboard business, Turner Outdoor Advertising, which he took over in 1963 after his father's suicide.[4] It was worth $1 million at the time (roughly $7.7 million in present-day terms)[5]. His purchase of an Atlanta UHF station in 1970 began the Turner Broadcasting System. Cable News Network revolutionized news media, covering the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Turner turned the Atlanta Braves baseball team into a nationally popular franchise and launched the charitable Goodwill Games. He helped revive interest in professional wrestling by buying World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and starting the Monday Night Wars in 1995, airing Monday Nitro on his TNT head-to-head against the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night RAW on USA. Turner's penchant for controversial statements earned him the nicknames "The Mouth of the South" and "Captain Outrageous".[6][7] Turner has also devoted his assets to environmental causes. He was the largest private landowner in the United States until John C. Malone surpassed him in 2011.[8][9] He uses much of his land for ranches to re-popularize bison meat (for his Ted's Montana Grill chain), amassing the largest herd in the world. He also created the environmental-themed animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers.[10]

(March 20, 1907 in Newnan, Georgia - December 13, 1992)[1] was an American politician, a liberal[citation needed] Democrat who served as the 69th Governor of the U.S. state of Georgia from 1943 to 1947.

is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner.[1] The 24-hour cable news channel was founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner.[2][3] Upon its launch, CNN was the first television channel to provide 24-hour news coverage,[4] and was the first all-news television channel in the United States.[5] While the news channel has numerous affiliates, CNN primarily broadcasts from the Time Warner Center in New York City, and studios in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, its headquarters at the CNN Center in Atlanta is only used for weekend programming. CNN is sometimes referred to as CNN/U.S. to distinguish the American channel from its international sister network, CNN International. As of August 2010, CNN is available in over 100 million U.S. households.[6] Broadcast coverage of the U.S. channel extends to over 890,000 American hotel rooms,[6] as well as carriage on cable and satellite providers throughout Canada. Globally, CNN programming airs through CNN International, which can be seen by viewers in over 212 countries and territories.[7] As of February 2015, CNN is available to approximately 96,289,000 cable, satellite, and telco television households (82.7% of households with at least one television set) in the United States.[8]

(French: Les Jeux olympiques d'été de 1996), known officially as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially as the Centennial Olympics, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, from July 19 to August 4, 1996. A record 197 nations, all current IOC member nations, took part in the Games, comprising 10,318 athletes. The International Olympic Committee voted in 1986 to separate the Summer and Winter Games, which had been held in the same year since 1924, and place them in alternating even-numbered years, beginning in 1994. The 1996 Summer Games were the first to be staged in a different year from the Winter Games. Atlanta became the sixth American city to host the Olympic Games and the third to hold a Summer Olympic Games. It will remain the last time the United States has hosted the Summer Olympics until at least 2024.

(born September 8, 1938) is an American lawyer and politician. Currently the co-chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, Nunn served for 24 years as a United States Senator from Georgia (1972 until 1997) as a member of the Democratic Party. His political experience and credentials on national defense reportedly put him into consideration as a potential running mate for Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry (2004) and Barack Obama (2008).[1]

• On January 19, 1861, Georgia, a slave state, declared that it had seceded from the United States and joined the newly formed Confederacy the next month, during the prelude to the American Civil War. During the war, Georgia sent nearly 100,000 men to battle for the Confederacy, mostly to the Virginian armies. Despite secession, many southerners in North Georgia remained loyal to the Union. Approximately 5,000 Georgians served in the Union army in units including the 1st Georgia Infantry Battalion, the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment, and a number of East Tennessean regiments.[1] The state switched from cotton to food production, but severe transportation difficulties eventually restricted supplies. Early in the war, the state's 1,400 miles of railroad tracks provided a frequently used means of moving supplies and men but, by the middle of 1864, much of these lay in ruins or in Union hands. • The Georgia legislature voted $100,000 to be sent to South Carolina for the relief of Charlestonians who suffered a disastrous fire in December 1861. • Thinking the state was immune from invasion, the Confederates built several small munitions factories in Georgia, and housed tens of thousands of Union prisoners. Their largest prisoner of war camp was at Andersonville.

• The Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America, or simply the Georgia Trustees, was organized by James Edward Oglethorpe and associates following Parliamentary investigations into prison conditions in Britain. The organization petitioned for a royal charter in July, 1731, which was signed by George II in April, 1732. After passing through government ministries, the charter reached the Trustees in June, 1732. Oglethorpe personally led the first group of colonist to the New World colony, departing England on November, 1732 and arriving at the site of present-day Savannah, Georgia on February 12, 1733 O.S. The founding of Georgia is celebrated on February 1, 1733 N.S., the date corresponding to the modern Gregorian calendar adopted after the establishment of the colony.[1]