History

Before North Georgia was opened to settlement of Europeans, the Hightower (Etowah) Trail ran just west of present day Roswell and crossed today's Azalea drive. With connections from Charleston via Augusta, the old thoroughfare ran through the Roswell area to the Indian towns of present-day northwest Georgia. The Hightower trail was once recognized as an early boundary between the Cherokee and Creek Indian Nations. The old road was used as the dividing line between Indian cessions of 1819 and 1821, and remains today as the boundary between Gwinnett and DeKalb Counties.

After northwest Georgia was opened to settlement in 1832, numerous pioneers migrated over this old trace and many built their homes along it. The name of the trail is believed to come from the Cherokee, Ita-Wa, but the first English to visit this section pronounced and recorded the name Hightower. Today most visible remains of the trail have been erased by urban settlement, but parts of it survive as modern roads.

• February 12, 1825: Creek Chiefs cede all Creek lands in Georgia to the United States in Treaty of Indian Springs and promise to leave Georgia by September 1. Creek tribesmen repudiate treaty.
• January 24, 1826: Treaty of Washington abrogates Treaty of Indian Springs. The Creeks cede a smaller area and are allowed to remain on their lands until January 1, 1827.
• 1828: Gold was found in north Georgia. This drew Roswell King of Darien, Georgia, to investigate the area. Traveling on horseback, Mr. King followed Indian trails to the Chattahoochee River near what is now Roswell. Following the Chattahoochee River, Roswell King discovered vast forests and the rushing waters of Vickery (Vickery's) Creek. These natural resources inspired him to envision a mill, powered by the water, and a community close by.
• 1838: Roswell King began work on the first cotton mill and in 1839 it was incorporated as "The Roswell Manufacturing Company". The company was extremely successful and expanded. Even a "flour" mill was constructed. Orders for cloth, tenting, rope, flannels, and yarn poured in. ^[1]
• 1839: Apartments called "The Bricks" are built for workers in the Roswell Cotton Mill, these apartments were the first built in the South and are believed to be the oldest in the United States.
• 1839: Fifteen (15) Presbyterian men and women, "members of the colony" of Roswell, invited the Rev. Nathaniel A. Pratt, D.D., of Darien, to organize the first Presbyterian church of Roswell.
• 1840: Major James Stephen Bulloch built Bulloch Hall. Bulloch Hall is a Greek Revival mansion. James Bullochs' daughter, Martha Bulloch lived here as a child and it is where she married Theodore Roosevelt Sr. Their son Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president of the United States.
• 1841: An outbreak of scarlet fever resulted in the death of many children; among them was Charles Irving Bulloch, infant son of Major and Mrs. James Stephens Bulloch and three-year-old Ralph King Hand, son of the widowed daughter of Roswell King, Eliza Hand, for whom the first permanent home in Roswell was built, Primrose Cottage.
• 1842: Barrington Hall is completed by Barrington King, co-founder of Roswell with his father, Roswell King.
• 1844: Roswell King died. His son Barrington King, and daughter-in-law, Catherine Nephew King, worked to carry on his father's dream.
• July 5, 1864: Union cavalry, under the command of Brigadier General Kenner Garrard, arrived in Roswell and the town was occupied. Retreating Confederate soldiers burned the covered bridge at the Chattahoochee River - However, there was a river crossing called Shallow Ford (located on today's Azalea Drive at the River Park). At Shallow Ford, in those early years, the river was only about waist deep. Phoenix Hall, The Bricks and the Presbyterian Church are used as hospitals by Union forces.
• July 7, 1864: General Sherman ordered everyone connected with the mill to be charged with treason. The nearby cotton mill was destroyed. Mill workers, mostly women and children were arrested, charged with treason and sent north to uncertain fates. One of the women involved in this tragedy was pregnant and working as a seamstress at the mill. She was sent north to Chicago and left to fend for herself. It would take five years before she and her daughter would return, on foot, to Roswell, only to find that her husband had remarried because he thought she was dead. Although the mills were destroyed, the magnificent homes and church were not. The mills were rebuilt after the war.
• 1926: The old mill burned down and was rebuilt and operated as Southern Mills from 1947 until it closed in 1975.
• 1975: The last mill in Roswell, "Southern Mill" closed.
• 1998: The "Faces Of War" Memorial was dedicated to all who served in the Vietnam War. It was built in a municipal park adjacent to the Roswell City Hall.

• Roswell History
  
• The New Georgia Encyclopedia

Georgia History

Ancient times

• 900 and 950: the mounds at Ocmulgee were constructed.
• 950 - 1450: The Mississippian Culture controlled portions of Northwest Georgia. They built three huge mounds (the Etowah Indian Mounds) just west of the confluence of Pumpkinvine Creek and the Etowah River.
• 1498, May 20: Italian explorer John Cabot left Dursey Head (Ireland) and made a 2nd trip to explore North America. It is possible that while on the trip Cabot explored the coast of Georgia.

• 1526, September 29: First colony on mainland America was established by Lucas Vázques de Ayllón. The location of the settlement is believed to be on Georgia's Sapelo Island.
• 1540: Spaniard Hernando de Soto explored Georgia.
• 1566: Forts were built along the Atlantic coast, including the first in Georgia on St. Catherines Island
• 1607; First permanent English colony in North America established at Jamestown, VA.
• 1629: Charles I of England granted a charter to Sir Robert Heath which included all territory between 31° and 36° N Lat. and extended from sea to sea. This was approximately from Albemarle Sound in North Carolina to Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia. The delivery of this charter is a matter of dispute. There are claims that this charter was conveyed to Samuel Vassal in 1630.
• 1650: Cherokee Nation had successfully migrated southward, occupying more than 40,000 square miles in the southern Appalachian Mountains.
• 1670, April: Charleston, South Carolina founded.
• 1670, July 18: Treaty of peace between England and Spain, who claims the entire eastern half of North America, signed at Madrid, Spain, provides that actual possession of land would determine ownership. The English have no settlements south of Charleston while the Spanish have settlements as far north as latitude 32" 30'. This is approximately the latitude of Port Royal (Santa Elena), South Carolina or about fifty miles north of Savannah.
• 1673: The Spanish reoccupy Santa Catalina (St. Catherines Island) and begin constructing a fort.
• 1681, February: Spanish abandon St. Catherines Island and move the garrison to Sapelo Island. 18th century.
• 1717, June: Sir Robert Montgomery secures a grant from the Palatine and Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina for the lands between the Alatamaha and Savannah Rivers. He names his colony the Margravate of Azilia.
• 1717: Sir Robert Montgomery publishes A Discourse Concerning the Designed Establishment of a New Colony to the South of Carolina, in the Most Delightful Country of the Universe.
• 1721: Colonel John Barnwell, of South Carolina, builds Fort King George at the mouth of the Altamaha River. This is the first British settlement in what will become Georgia.
• 1730, February 13: Earl of Egmont's diary contains the first written mention of Georgia. The state of Georgia purchased Egmont's Journal of the Transaction of the Trustees for $16,000 in 1946. Egmont's Journal is known as Georgia's birth certificate.
• 1730. July 30: James Oglethorpe and 20 associates petition George II for a royal charter to establish a colony southwest of Carolina.
• 1732, January 27: Privy Council approves Georgia's charter.
• 1732, April: George II signs Georgia's charter.
• 1732, June 9: The privy seal is affixed to Georgia's charter and George II grants charter with seven-eights interest to James Edward Oglethorpe, the Earl of Egmont and 19 associates for all the land "between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers from the Atlantic coast to the headwaters of these streams and thence to the South Seas" for 21 years.
• 1732, July 20: Twelve trustees attend the first meeting of the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in America at Old Palace Yard, Westminster. A total of 72 trustees will serve during the life of the charter. Six of the original Trustees will still be serving when the charter is surrendered. The Trustees are not allowed to hold office, own land or profit from Georgia in any way.
• 1732, October 3: 114 colonists have been enrolled. Male colonists are drilled by the sergeants of the Royal Guard.
• 1732, November 17: James Oglethorpe and 114 colonists embark on the Anne from Gravesend, England for Charles Town, Carolina. Ten tuns of Alderman Parson's best beer are on board. The Anne stops at Madeira to take on board five tuns of wine. Two children die on the voyage and four children are born.
• 1732: Colony is supposed to produce hemp, silk, grapes, olives and medicinal plants, for which England is dependent upon foreign countries.
• 1733, February: The Trustees Garden is established. This is the first public agricultural experimental garden in the colonies. The upland cotton which prolongs slavery with such disastrous consequences is developed here as well as Georgia's famed peaches.
• 1733 Jan. 13; James Oglethorpe and the first settlers for Georgia arrive in Charles Town Harbor, South Carolina on the Anne. Savannah, Georgia is founded soon after.
• 1733, February 1: Savannah founded by Oglethorpe with 116 colonists and Savannah becomes the first permanent English settlement.
• 1735, January 9: Three laws enacted for Georgia under Trustee rule:
  1. Slaves prohibited in Georgia.
  2. Rum prohibited in Georgia.
  3. Traders required to purchase a license before trading with the Indians.
  Laws had to be enacted by parliament and signed by the King. The Trustees could only suggest laws.
• 1735: Augusta founded on the Savannah River.
• 1739: October: England declares war on Spain, War of Jenkins Ear.
• 1739, November 15: News reaches Fort Frederica that a party of Spanish, Negroes and Indians recently landed on Amelia Island during the night, killed two unarmed Highlanders and mutilated the bodies.
• 1740, January 1: Oglethorpe invades Florida.
• 1740, June: Oglethorpe bombards St. Augustine, Florida for three weeks without effect.
• 1740, July 5: South Carolina troops at the siege of St. Augustine begin a disorderly retreat and Oglethorpe lifts siege.
• 1742, July 7: The Battle of Bloody Marsh was the last Spanish action in the War of Jenkins' Ear. The Spanish were prevented from taking Charleston. Almost all authors speak of a great slaughter and numerous dead but no one quotes the actual number of casualties. Oglethorpe reports killing 170 to 200 Spaniards. Both English and Spanish sources report the action as being especially bloody. Georgia desperately needed a victory and the Spanish needed an excuse. The Boston Post October 4, 1742 page 2 reported: "They both did meet, they both did fight, they both did run away, they both did strive to meet again, the quite Contrary Way." In any event it was a Glorious Victory.
• 1742, July 14: Parliament directs the trustees to rescind the prohibition on rum. The officers charged with enforcing the rum prohibition were using their position to sell rum.
• 1749: Law prohibiting the importation of slaves rescinded. Georgia planters were hiring South Carolina slaves for life and even openly purchasing slaves at the dock in Savannah.
• 1749, July 20: Mary Musgrove declares herself Empress of the Creeks and marches on Savannah with a Creek Army to either collect moneys due her for services rendered during the War of Jenkins' Ear or to drive the whites from Georgia. The Creeks are satisfied with a few presents and some rum. Mary's claims are settled by London for £2,100 and title to St. Catherines Island.
• 1755, January 7: First Assembly under the British Crown meets at Savannah. First law passed by the Assembly provides for punishment of anyone who questions the decisions of the Assembly.
• 1756, January: Four hundred French Arcadians arrive in Georgia. About 6,000 will be sent to Georgia and the Carolinas.
• 1760, October 25: George II dies after a 33-year reign at 77 and George III begins a disastrous 60-year reign.
• 1763, February 10: Treaty of Paris terminates the Seven Years War. France cedes Canada and all territory east of the Mississippi River to Great Britain and West Louisiana to Spain. Spain cedes all territory east of the Mississippi, with the exception of New Orleans, to Great Britain.
• 1763, April 7: Georgia Gazette begins publication. Georgia Gazette is the first newspaper in Georgia and the eighth in the English colonies.
• 1764, April 5: Sugar Act passed. This is the first serious dispute between the colonies and Great Britain.
• 1765, March 22: Stamp Act passed.
• 1765, May 2: The Georgia Gazette suspends publication due to Stamp Act.
• 1765, October 7: Stamp Act Congress held in New York. Georgia sends an unofficial observer whose sole duty is to bring back a copy of the minutes.
• 1765, October 31: Stamp Master hanged in effigy in Savannah.
• 1765, November 1: Stamp Act becomes effective but Georgia has no stamps, no stamp master and no official notice of the Stamp Act. The royal Governor James Wright suspends the courts and clears ships with certificates attesting that no stamps are available. Savannah is soon crowded with ships from all over the Empire seeking passes.
• 1766, March 18: George III signs bill to rescind Stamp Act.
• 1766, May 21: The Georgia Gazette resumes publication.
• 1767, June 29: The Townshend Revenue Act passed by Parliament. The Act imposes duties on tea, glass, paint, oil, lead and paper imported into the colonies. The estimated revenue is £40,000 per annum. Charles, Townshend is Chancellor of the Exchequer. Townshend said, "These colonies are children of the mother country. They were planted by our care and nurtured by us. They will not grudge us their mite to help with the heavy burden we bear." James Habersham warns the British, "If you persist in your right to tax the colonists, you will drive them to rebellion."
• 1770, January 19-20: The battle of Golden Hill New York is the first clash between British forces and colonists.
• 1770, March 5: Boston Massacre. British troops fire into a rioting mob killing five men and wounding six. Three men die instantly and two die later of wounds. The British Captain and his men are tried for murder and acquitted. The prosecutor is Robert Treat Paine and the defense attorneys are John Adams and Josiah Quincy II.
• 1774, September 5: First Continental Congress in Philadelphia is attended by twelve of the nineteen continental colonies. Georgia, Canada, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, East Florida and West Florida do not attend.
• 1774, October 14 - A Declaration of Rights and Grievances adopted by the Continental Congress. George Washington writes "no thinking man in all of North America desires independence".
• 1774, October 20: The Continental Congress adopts "The Association" which is an agreement to import nothing from Great Britain after December 1, and to export nothing to Great Britain, Ireland or the British West Indies after September 10 unless grievances against the Crown are redressed. The Association is ratified within six months by all colonies except Georgia and New York.
• 1774, October 26: The Continental Congress sends a petition to King George and an address to the British people.
• 1774, December: St. Johns Parish ratifies the acts of the Continental Congress and attempts to secede from Georgia and join South Carolina. St. Johns elects its own delegate, Lyman Hall, to the Continental Congress. The Continental Congress banned all intercourse with Georgia except for St. Johns Parish.
• 1775 - 1783 American Revolution
• 1775, April 19: Battles of Lexington and Concord.
• 1775, May 10: Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia.
• 1775, May 11: The Royal magazine in Savannah looted by Joseph Habersham and other members of the Council of Safety. 600 pounds of powder taken.
• 1775, June 15: George Washington appointed commander in chief of the Continental Army.
• 1775, August 13: George III Proclaims the Americas in a State of Rebellion.
• 1776: South Carolina adopts a resolution to annex Georgia and threatens to destroy Georgia by constructing a town opposite Savannah and drying up Georgia's commerce.
• 1776, January: South Carolina agents arrive in Georgia to agitate for a union of South Carolina and Georgia.
• 1776, February: The Georgia Gazette ceases publication.
• 1776, March 2-3: Battle of the Rice Boats at Savannah.
• 1776, July 2: The Continental Congress, with New York abstaining, declared the United Colonies free and independent states. The signers of the Declaration of Independence from Georgia were George Walton, Lyman Hall, and Button Gwinnett.
• 1776, July 4: Declaration of Independence justifying the action of July 2 approved.
• 1778: General Sir Henry Clinton in New York ordered Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell to invade Georgia with 3,000 troops.
• 1778, December 29: British troops capture Savannah, GA during the Revolutionary War.
• 1779; Spain, the United States' unsung ally, asks Britain to recognize the independence of the thirteen united States of America and to cease hostilities. Spain contributes over $5,000,000 to the revolution.
• 1779: The Georgia Gazette resumes publication as the Royal Georgia Gazette.
• 1779, January 31: British take Augusta.
• 1779, February 14: Battle of Kettle Creek.
• 1779, March 3: Battle of Brier Creek.
• 1779, June 21: Spain declares war on Great Britain.
• 1779: Spain captures Natchez. This will interfere with Georgia's efforts to establish Bourbon County Georgia in 1785.
• 1779, September 25: Bombardment of Savannah begins at seven a.m. but is discontinued to improve the batteries.
• 1779, October 3: Firing resumes at midnight but is again discontinued as the French gunners are drunk.
• 1779, October 9: The storming of Savannah is a complete failure with terrible loss of life.
• 1779, October 11: Count Kazimierz Pulaski dies of wounds sustained during siege of Savannah.
• 1779, October 18: Siege of Savannah abandoned after 34 days.
• 1780, February 3: Heard's Fort designated as Capital of Georgia.
• 1781, March 1: Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union signed.
• 1781, March 2: The United States in Congress assembles.
• 1781, September 28: Generals George Washington and Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau, along with La Fayette's troops and 3,000 of de Grasse's men, arrived at Yorktown. With them was the 2nd Canadian Regiment led by Brigadier General Moses Hazen. In all, there were approximately 17,000 men converging on the camp established by Cornwallis and the siege of Yorktown begins.
• 1781, October 19: General Cornwallis surrenders.
• 1781 December: When news reaches London of Washington´s defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the British Parliament resolves to bring the war to an end.
• 1782, July 12: British evacuate Savannah.
• 1783: The Treaty of Paris is signed formally ending the American War of Independence. The United States was bounded by British Canada on the north, Spanish Florida on the south, and the Mississippi River on the west.
• 1786, July 1: James Oglethorpe dies.
• 1787, September 17: The United States Constitution is signed at the Constitutional Convention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The signers from Georgia are William Few and Abraham Baldwin.
• 1787, September 21: Battle of Jacks Creek.
• 1787, December 31: Georgia ratifies United States Constitution. The fourth state to do so.
• 1788, January 2: The Georgia delegates formally sign the United States Constitution at Augusta and Georgia becomes the 4th state.
• 1793; Eli Whitney invents cotton gin.
• 1795: Yazoo land scandal - massive fraud perpetrated by several Georgia governors and the state legislature from 1795 to 1803 by selling large tracts of land to insiders at ridiculously low prices.
• 1798, Georgia forbids further importation of slaves.

• 1802: Georgia formally cedes western claims for its southern boundary at the 31st parallel to Alabama.
• 1805: The Treaty of Tellico with the Cherokees and the Treaty of Washington with the Creeks gave the government the right to open and operate roads through Indian lands.
• 1807: Horace King was born as a slave of African, European, and Native American (Catawba) ancestry in Chesterfield District, South Carolina. His master, John Godwin (1798-1859), a contractor, realized King's intuitive genius as a builder and nurtured those skills. King became know as Georgia's Master Bridge Builder.
• 1808: January 1 - United Stares bans all importation of slaves.
• 1810: The surveying and constructing of a route to link Georgia with Tennessee and Alabama began in 1810. Known as the Old Federal Road, much of the route followed an old Cherokee trading path and connected Georgia with Nashville and Knoxville, both frontier settlements in Tennessee. From Athens the route led northwestward along a generally straight course, entering the lands of the Cherokees at the present Hall County-Jackson County line and heading toward what is now Ramhurst in Murray County, GA. There it forked, one branch leading north to Knoxville and the other west to Ross Landing, now Chattanooga, TN.
• 1812 - 1815: War of 1812
• 1814 January 27: Battle of Calabee Creek.
• 1814, March 27: Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
• 1814 - 1815: British troops occupied St. Mary's and Cumberland Islands.
• 1814, August: British troops occupied and burn Washington DC.
• 1814, September: Francis Scott Key became an eyewitness to the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore. He writes a poem that eventually becomes the "The Star-Spangled Banner".
• 1814, December 24: Treaty of Ghent ends War of 1812. United States and Great Britain agree to cooperate in suppressing the slave trade but Yankee Clippers built at Baltimore, Maryland and New Port, Rhode Island out sail the ponderous British man-of-wars assigned to patrol the slave lanes.
• 1815, February 17 British finally evacuate St. Marys Island.
  
• 1817 - 1818: First Seminole war begins as Georgia backwoodsmen attack Indians just north of the Florida border.
• 1818, March 9: Andrew Jackson arrives at Fort Scott to concentrate troops for an expedition into Spanish Florida against those who have been raiding United States territory.
• 1818: First Seminole War ends.
• 1820, March 3: Missouri Compromise accepted by Congress. Missouri is admitted as a slave state in exchange for Maine's admittance as a free state on the condition that slavery is abolished in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.
• February 12, 1825: Creek Chiefs cede all Creek lands in Georgia to the United States in Treaty of Indian Springs and promise to leave Georgia by September 1. Creek tribesmen repudiate treaty.
• 1825, November 12: the Cherokee council adopts a resolution making Newtown the Cherokee Nation's capital. They changed the town's name to New Echota in honor of Chota, a beloved town located in present-day Tennessee.
• January 24, 1826: Treaty of Washington abrogates Treaty of Indian Springs. The Creeks cede a smaller area and are allowed to remain on their lands until January 1, 1827.
• 1828: The Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper in the United States, was first printed in New Echota, Georgia, the capital of the Cherokee Nation.
• 1828, January: The Fanny becomes the first steamboat to run from the Gulf of Mexico to Columbus, GA. The journey took several months.
• 1828 - Gold discovered in Georgia.
• 1828, May 9: Seminoles in Florida sign treaty ceding all tribal land east of the Mississippi. Fifteen Chiefs sign.
• 1834, July 9: The S.S. John Randolph, the first successful iron steamship, is launched in Savannah.
• 1835 - 1842 Second Seminole War.
• 1835: Osceola thrusts his knife through the 1832 treaty. Osceola is arrested but escapes.
• 1836: Seminoles massacre Major Francis L. Dade and his 103 man command.
• 1836, February: Battle of Hitchity.
• 1836, July 3: Battle of Chickasawachee Swamp.
• 1836, July 27: Battle of Echowanochaway Creek.
• 1837: Osceola and several followers are arrested under a flag of truce at St. Augustine on orders of General Thomas S. Jesup.
• 1837, December 25: Zachary Taylor, Old Rough and Ready, defeats Seminoles at Okeechobee Swamp.
• 1836, December 19: Emory College established. The original site was Oxford.
• 1837: Terminus the western terminal of Western and Atlantic Railroad is founded. Terminus will become Atlanta.
• 1838: Trail of Tears, Cherokees and Creek Indians are forced from the state.
• 1838: Underground railroad starts.
• 1840's: Most of the "easy" gold has been found in Georgia. It is estimated that Georgia produced about 870,000 troy ounces (24,000 kg) of gold between 1828 and the mid-20th Century, when commercial gold production ceased.
• 1842: Crawford W. Long performs first recorded operation under general anesthesia. Ether parties are in vogue and Long notices the absence of pain in guests who fall down and bruise themselves at an ether party he hosts. He removes a cyst from James Venable's neck while Venable is under the influence of ether.
• 1843: Terminus is renamed Marthasville after Martha Atalanta Lumpkin daughter of Governor Wilson Lumpkin.
• 1844: Crawford W. Long uses ether in childbirth at Jefferson, Georgia. He administers ether to his wife during the birth of their second child.
• 1846: Two railroad lines connect with the Western and Atlantic in the center of Marthasville (Atlanta), connecting it to far-flung areas of the Southeast and spurring the city's growth.
• 1847: Atlanta, Georgia is incorporated (Formally Marthasville). Atlanta is named for Martha Atalanta Lumpkin the daughter of Governor Wilson Lumpkin, Atalanta is a variant of Atlanta.
• 1848: Horace King was emancipated.
• 1848: Dred Scott unsuccessfully sues for his freedom Dred Scott v. Sandford case in U.S. Supreme Court.
• 1849: Harriet Tubman escapes to the north and becomes a conductor on the Underground Railroad.
• 1850, September 8: A new Fugitive Slave Act strengthens the 1793 act by substituting federal jurisdiction for state jurisdiction.
• 1854, February 28: Republican Party organizes at Ripon, Wisconsin by former Whigs and disaffected Democrats opposed to the extension of slavery.
• 1854: Wisconsin Supreme Court rules Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is unconstitutional.
• mid-1850s: Horace King built Moore's Bridge, over the Chattahoochee River between Newnan and Carrollton, and accepted stock in the enterprise as payment.
• 1861 - 1865 American Civil War. [More Information]
• 1861
• January 2: Georgia seizes Fort Pulaski.
• January 19: Georgia rescinds the January 2, 1788, ratification of the United States Constitution. The motion is introduced by Judge Eugenius Nisbet and the vote is 208 to 89. All members sign but six do so under protest.
• January 24: Georgia forces occupy the Augusta Arsenal.
• February 18: Jefferson Davis becomes the President of the Confederate States of America.
• March 4: Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States.
• April 6: Lincoln informs Governor Francis Pickens that Fort Sumter will be re-provisioned and that if the effort is resisted the fort will be reinforced.
• April 9: The Confederate cabinet at a meeting in Montgomery, AL, decides to open fire on Ft. Sumter. President Jefferson Davis orders General P. T. Beauregard to "reduce" Fort Sumter.
• April 12: Bombardment of Fort Sumter begins at 4:30 A.M. The bombardment lasts 33 hours and the Confederates fire 3,000 shells. No one on either side is killed and only one injured at Fort Sumter. Edmund Ruffin is credited with the first shot. Captain James fired the signal shell from a ten inch mortar on Johnson's Island but the first gun from the iron clad battery on Morris Island is generally considered the first shot. Roger A. Pryor declined the honor of firing the signal shell. Ruffin later wraps himself in the Confederate Flag and commits suicide.
• April 13: Fort Sumter surrenders at 2:30 PM on Saturday. Major Robert Anderson is allowed to fire a 100 gun salute to the United States Flag but only 50 guns are fired. One of the guns explodes and Private Daniel Hough is killed and five are injured. Some authors say two were killed. Perhaps one died of wounds.
• April 14 - Fort Sumter is evacuated at noon. The commanding officer at Fort Sumter is Major Robert Anderson and the artillery officer is Abner Doubleday. (Doubleday will be credited, erroneously, with the invention of baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown N.Y. by the 1908 Spalding Commission.)
• April 15: Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers for three months service.
  
• 1862
• February 10: General Robert E. Lee requests permission from Governor Joseph E. Brown to dismantle the batteries on Jekyll Island as the inhabitants of the island and Brunswick had moved inland. Major Edward C. Anderson removes the guns and sends them to Savannah.
• March 9: United States forces occupy Jekyll Island.
• April: Conscription Act passed by the Confederate States.
• April 12: The Great Locomotive Chase - James Andrews and 21 other Federal raiders steal the Western & Atlantic locomotive General at Big Shanty (now Kennesaw) near Marietta, Georgia, and head north toward Chattanooga. Their intention is to disrupt Confederate rail operations between Atlanta and Chattanooga. Determined Confederate trainmen operating the locomotive Texas in reverse pursue the raiders. The General finally quits running as it nears the Tennessee state line. The raiders abandon the General, but most are captured and several are subsequently hanged. Nineteen (19) of the soldiers are awarded the Medal of Honor.
• July: The Griswold Cotton Gin Company produces their first revolving pistols for the Confederate Army.
• September 22: President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation declaring the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863.
• 1863
• March 3: Conscription Act passed by the United States.
• March 3: Battle of Fort McAllister, GA.
• April 11: Fort Pulaski, Georgia is captured by United States forces.
• July 1-3: Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
• July 13-16: Draft Riots in New York City.
• September 19 - 20: Confederate Victory at the Battle of Chickamauga. The battle is the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.
• November 15: William T. Sherman arrives in Chattanooga, TN.
• November 19: President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
• November 24: Battle Above the Clouds, Lookout Mountain, TN.
• November 25: Battle for Missionary Ridge, TN.
• 1864
• February 22-27: First Battle of Dalton, GA.
• May 7: Sherman starts Atlanta campaign at Dalton, GA.
• May 8-10: Battle of Battle of Rocky Face.
• May 13-15: Battle of Resaca, Georgia.
• May 16: Battle of Rome Cross Roads.
• May 16: Battle of Adairsville.
• May 24-June 4: Battle of Dallas.
• May 25-26: Battle of New Hope Church, GA.
• May 27: Battle of Pickett's Mill.
• June 3: Capture of the USS Water Witch.
• June 9 - July 3: Battle of Marietta.
• June 22: General John B. Hood attacks at Kolb Farm, halting Sherman's attempt to bypass Kennesaw.
• June 27: Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.
• July 4: Battle of Ruff's Mill.
• July 17: President Jefferson Davis relieves Joseph E. Johnston of command and places General John B. Hood in charge with the rank of full General. In a meeting with his men, Sherman instructs them to expect an attack at any moment, given Hood's aggressive nature.
• July 19: Battle of Moore's Mill.
• July 20: Battle of Peachtree Creek, GA.
• July 22: Battle of Atlanta.
• July 22: Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson U. S. and Brigadier General James A. Walker, C.S.A. are killed during the Battle of Atlanta.
• July 28: Battle of Ezra Church.
• July 30: Battle of Dunlap Farm.
• July 31: Battle of Sunshine Church.
• August 2: Stoneman's Raiders repulsed at Barbers Creek outside Athens by Lumpkin's Artillery.
• August 3: Battle of Jug Tavern, or Kings Tanyard. Maj. Gen. George Stoneman, U.S.A. and 600 men surrender to Brigadier General Alfred Iverson, Jr.
• August 5-7: Battle of Utoy Creek.
• August 14-15: Second Battle of Dalton.
• August 20: Battle of Lovejoy's Station.
• August, 31 - September 1: Battle of Jonesboro.
• September 1: Confederates evacuate Atlanta, Georgia
• September 2: Atlanta is occupied by United States troops. After the occupation of Atlanta by Federal forces the remaining civilians were required to register for transportation to points north or south as desired. Those electing to go south are carried, with household goods, in army wagons from Atlanta to Rough and Ready (now Mountain View) where, by truce agreement, they are transferred in Hood's wagons [CS] to the rail-head at Lovejoy. From there they continue south on the Macon & Western R. R. Mass eviction of the populace is necessitated because Atlanta is transformed into an armed camp under martial law - a status that prevailed Nov. 16, 1865.
• October 5: Battle of Allatoona, Georgia
• October 12: Battle of Narrows.
• November 15: Sherman begins March to the sea. Sherman's March to the Sea is considered the first example of total war because it resulted in wholesale destruction of the countryside, much like a modern bombing raid. The Union army burned bridges, railroads, factories, warehouses, barns, and plantations, taking or destroying food that could not be eaten by the troops.
• November 19: United States forces occupy Buckhead and burn buildings and supplies.
• November 22: Battle of Griswoldville
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• November 23: United States troops enter Milledgeville.
• November 28: Cavalry action at Buckhead Church.
• December 12: Battle between Confederate Gunboats on the Savannah River and United States field artillery.
• December 13: Second Battle of Fort McAllister. United States troops capture Fort McAllister, Georgia.
• December 19: Savannah evacuated.
• December 21: United States troops occupy Savannah.
• 1865
• April 8: General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Station, VA.
• April 14: Lincoln shot by John Wilks Booth at Fords Theater on Good Friday.
• April 14: General Robert Anderson raises the same flag over Fort Sumter that he lowered 4 years before.
• April 16: Battle of Columbuss the last major land battle during the War Between the States.
• April 16: Battle of West Point. Fort Tyler falls after an 8 hour siege.
• April 17: United States forces burn Haiman's Sword Factory. The factory also produced Colt Navy Pistols.
• April 18, General Joseph E. Johnston surrender to General William T. Sherman at the Bennett Place near Durham, North Carolina, effectively ending the Civil War.
• May 10: Jefferson Davis captured by United States troops at Irwinville, Georgia.
• May 12: Surrender of some 3,000 to 4,000 Confederate troops, mostly Georgians, at Kingston.
• June 17: First Reconstruction. James Johnson appointed Provisional Governor by President Andrew Johnson.
• November 10: Henry Wirz, commandant of the Confederate prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, Georgia, is hanged in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington D.C.
  

• 1865, December 9: Legislature ratifies 13th amendment.
• 1867: Atlanta University is founded.
• 1866 March 27: President Andrew Johnson vetoes civil rights act. Congress passes the bill over the veto.^[2]
• 1867, March 2: Second Reconstruction. Georgia placed under the 3rd Military district by the Reconstruction Act of March 2.
• 1867, December 9: Constitutional Convention meets in Atlanta with 169 total delegates of which 37 are African-American.
• 1868, July 25: Congress approves Georgia's re-admission to the United States but adjourns before Georgia's Senators could be seated.
• 1877, December 5: Atlanta becomes capital of Georgia. Vote is 99,147 to 55,201.
• 1885, September: Fort McPherson is founded in East Point, Georgia and named for Major General James Birdseye McPherson.
• 1886, May 8: Coca Cola goes on sale at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1889: Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills opens on the south side of the Georgia Railroad line, east of downtown Atlanta, GA. One part of the company evolved into the Elsas, May Paper Company and the other, led by Jacob Elsas and incorporated in 1889, became the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill Company.
• 1893: Public hangings abolished.
• 1895; Booker T. Washington speech to the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, GA, urges racial accommodation, suggesting blacks seek economic independence rather than political/social equality.
• 1896; Plessy v. Ferguson decision by U.S. Supreme Court establishes "separate but equal" doctrine in racial policy.
• 1898, February 15; The USS Maine (ACR-1) exploded and sinks in Havana Harbor, Cuba.
• 1898; Spanish-American War.
• 1899: The boll weevil crosses the Rio Grande from Mexico.
• 1912, March 12: Girl Scouts founded in Savannah.
  
• 1914 - 1920 The First World War. [More Information]
• 1917, February 3: US severs diplomatic ties with Germany.
• 1917, April 6: The US declares war on Germany.
• 1918, March 3: Russia and Germany sign an armistice at Brest-Litovsk.
• 1918, May 28: US forces make their first offensive, at Cantigny, France.
• 1917 - 1919: Camp Gordon - Atlanta
• Constructed during America's rush to mobilize for World War I, Camp Gordon was one of 16 temporary training camps, the largest in the southern states and the focus of Atlanta's wartime patriotic spirit. It served as birthplace and training ground for the legendary 82D "All American" division and hospital No. 43, the Emory University Medical Unit are based.
• Built under the supervision of Major J.N. Pease, Quartermaster Corps, and engineered by Lockwood-Greene & Co., Camp Gordon was the largest construction project in Atlanta history to that time. Ready for troop occupancy in just five months, the camp's 2,400 acres included 1,635 buildings with barracks for 46,612 men and corral space for 7,688 horses and mules. The November 11, 1918 armistice ended "The Great War" and the need for Camp Gordon. It was salvaged and abandoned by 1921.
• The Emory Unit served in France and was reactivated for World War II. Atlanta's own 82D Division fought with distinction in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives, suffered 8,077 casualties and produced the most decorated hero of the war, Sgt. Alvin York. It was reactivated for World War II as the 82D Airborne Division.
• The 82nd Infantry Division was formed August 25, 1917, at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Since members of the Division came from all 48 states, the unit was given the nickname "All-Americans," hence its famed "AA" shoulder patch.
  
• 1918, November 11: Armistice Day. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Germany signs an armistice with the Allies. The war is officially over. More than 8.5 million have been killed and over twice as many wounded from across the globe. New technology has been created, America has risen to prominence as an economic power and new countries are forming in Europe and the Middle East.
• Fort McPherson was used to house German naval prisoners of war.
  
• 1921: Boll weevil cuts Georgia and South Carolina Cotton production in half.
• 1925 - February 13: Coca-Cola magnate Asa Candler offers Candler Field to the city of Atlanta for use as an airport for a second time.
• 1927 The Georgia Warm Springs Foundation is founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt and philanthropist Basil O'Connor as a treatment center and refuge for polio patients. The center will be operated by the National Foundation March of Dimes.
• 1929, January 15: Martin Luther King, Jr., is born in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1929 - 1940; The Great Depression and New Deal.
• The beginning of the Great Depression in the United States is associated with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. The depression had devastating effects in both the industrialized countries and those which exported raw materials.
• The New Deal is the title President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a sequence of programs and promises he initiated between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving relief, reform and recovery to the people and economy of the United States during the Great Depression.
• 1931, September 18, Japan invades Manchuria.
• 1934: The Masters golf tournament for professionals begins at Georgia's Augusta National Golf Club.
• 1936, June 30: Gone with the Wind written by Margaret Mitchell is published.
• 1937: Japan invades China.
• 1938, March 10: The Light Cruiser USS Savannah (CL-42) is commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
• 1939 - 1945 World War II. [More Information]
• Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria) versus Allies (U.S., Britain, France, USSR, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Yugoslavia).
• 1939: Germany invades Poland.


• 1941 - 1959 Navel Air Station Atlanta.
• Anticipating America's involvement in a second world war, the government returned to the site of Camp Gordon in October 1940 and over the next seven months constructed a 400-acre Naval Reserve Aviation Base at the DeKalb County Airport.
• Commissioned in March 1941, the field's chief mission was primary flight training of Navy and Marine Corps aviators. Expanding to meet war needs, the base added training for instrument flight instructors and in January 1943 was designated Naval Air Station Atlanta. Training some 3,000 pilots and over 4,000 instructors, NAS Atlanta supported the vast expansion of naval aviation that proved decisive in the Pacific War against Japan.
• Following World War II, NAS Atlanta became a Reserve Naval Air Station with nine squadrons (F4U Corsairs, F6F Hellcats, TMB Avengers, and PBY Catalinas) and trained reservists to meet the Korean War emergency of 1950-1953.
• The evolution of jet fighters and large patrol bombers prompted the relocation of NAS Atlanta to the longer runways of Dobbins Air Force Base, Marietta in 1959.
• 1941, December 7: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.
• 1941, December 24: The Light Cruiser USS Atlanta (CL-51) is commissioned at the New York Navy Yard.
• 1942 - January 28: The Eighth Air Force is activated in Savannah.
• 1942, July 20 The 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment was activated on 20 July 1942 at Mount Currahee, Camp Toccoa, Georgia, as part of the newly formed 101st Airborne Division. Currahee is a Cherokee Indian word meaning " Stands Alone", a phrase which later became the Regiment's motto. Led by their Regimental Commander, Col Robert F. Sink, the Regiment conducted a 137-mile forced march from Camp Toccoa to Fort Benning to begin Airborne training. They were the first Parachute Infantry Regiment to complete Airborne training as a unit.
• 1942, August 15: The 82nd and 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) are activated at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. The 82nd Infantry Division, the All-American Division is re-designated the 82nd Airborne Division to became the first airborne division in the U.S. Army.
• 1942, November 13: The Light Cruiser USS Atlanta (CL-51) is Sunk during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.
• 1942 - 1945: The Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta, GA, builds 663 Boeing-designed B-29 Superfortress Bombers.
• 1943: Georgia allows 18 year olds to vote.
• 1945, April 12: President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies at Warm Springs, Georgia.
• 1945, May 8: Victory in Europe, V-E Day.
• 1945, September 2: Victory over Japan, V-J Day Japanese sign surrender terms aboard battleship Missouri (BB-63).
  
• 1946, July 1: The Communicable Disease Center (CDC) is created to control and eradicate malaria in the United States. The CDC is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1946, December 7: The Winecoff Hotel fire in Atlanta killed 119 of the 280 people who were staying in the hotel at the time of the fire. This is one of the deadliest hotel fires in North America.
• 1950 - 1953; The Korean War is fought in Korea.
• 1966, January 10: Black legislators seated for the first time in 58 years.
• 1962, March 23: The nuclear-powered ship the NS Savannah is launched. The NS Savannah was the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship and one of only four nuclear-powered cargo ships ever built. The Maritime Administration decommissioned her in 1972.
• 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis.
• September 8: First consignment of SS-4 MRBMs arrived in Cuba from the Soviet Union. The range of the SS-4 is 2,080 km. (1100 nautical miles, about 1266 statute mile).
• September 16: Second consignment of SS-4 MRBMs and SS-5s with a 4,000 kilometer-range (2,400 statute miles) arrived in Cuba.
• October 1: Four attack submarines -- B-4, B-36, B-59, and B-130--of the Soviet Sixty-Ninth Submarine Brigade depart from Sayda Bay, near Murmank, heading for Mariel Bay, Cuba. The submarines are of the "Foxtrot" (F-class) category, as designated by NATO. Armed with nuclear-tipped torpedoes and supplied with tropical clothing, the submarines and their crews have orders to sail covertly to Cuba and establish a base at Mariel.
• October 22: President John F. Kennedy delivers a televised address announcing the discovery of the missile installations. He proclaimed that the United States would "...regard any nuclear missile launched from the island of Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response..." He also placed a naval "quarantine" on Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of military weapons from arriving there.
• October 24: Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara informs President Kennedy that a Soviet submarine is close to two Soviet ships that the U.S. Navy intends to intercept.^[3] He stresses the danger of the situation, but assures Kennedy that the Navy is prepared. The USS Essex group was instructed to block the progress of the submarine and was authorized to use "small explosives" if necessary. Unbeknownst to the Navy, the submarine carried a nuclear-tipped torpedo with orders that allowed its use if the submarine was "hulled" ^[4]. At 10:25 a.m. John McCone received an intelligence message and announced that the ships had gone dead in the water.
• October 28: a new message from Nikita Khrushchev is broadcast on Radio Moscow. Khrushchev stated "the Soviet government, in addition to previously issued instructions on the cessation of further work at the building sites for the weapons, has issued a new order on the dismantling of the weapons which you describe as 'offensive' and their crating and return to the Soviet Union."
• 1968, April 4: Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots occur in Albany, Fort Valley, Macon and Savannah.
• 1970: The Communicable Disease Center (CDC) in Atlanta is renamed the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to reflect a broader mission in preventive health.^[5]
• 1977, November 6: Kelly Barnes Dam, located above the Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia fails. Thirty-nine people died in the resulting flood.
• 1977 - 1981 James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. from Plains, Georgia becomes the thirty-ninth President of the United States.
• 1996: Atlanta is home to the Centennial Summer Olympics.

For more information about The History of Georgia, visit the following sites:

• Mississippian Period: Overview
• Chattahoochee River Georgia Land and Resources
• Flowing Through Time: The Chattahoochee Throughout History
• Chronology Of Georgia
• Chronological History of Georgia
• Battle of Lexington and Concord
• Military Science - Battle of Lexington and Concord
• War of 1812 and Georgia
• Abolishing the slave trade
• Horace King (1807-1888) Georgia's Master Bridge Builder
• Horace King - Former Slave Turned Bridge Builder
• Horace King (1807-1885)
• How Gold Mining in North Georgia Was Affected by the Civil War
• The Great Locomotive Chase
• The Atlanta Campaign Summary of the Principal Events
• Sherman's March to the Sea
• Reconstruction in Georgia
• Inventory of the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills Architectural Drawings, 1889-1952
• Emory University School of Medicine
• Martin Luther King, Jr - Biography
• Martin Luther King Jr. - A True Historical Examination
• Mukden Incident
• Timeline of World War II
• World War II in Georgia
• Winecoff Hotel Tragedy
• The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 18-29, 1962
• The Cuban Missile Crisis
• 1996 Summer Olympics
• USGS Toccoa Flood - November 6, 1977
• Georgia's Aviation History