Editing Georgia (U.S. state) (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of Georgia (U.S. state)}}

===Pre-settlement===
Before settlement by [[European colonization of the Americas|European colonists]], Georgia was inhabited by the [[Mound Builders|mound building]] cultures.

===Colonial era and Revolutionary War===
{{Main|Province of Georgia}}
On February 12, 1733, a year after Georgia was established as a British colony, the [[Province of Georgia]] was established in [[Savannah, Georgia|Savannah]] by British General [[James Oglethorpe]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://georgia.gov/georgia-facts-and-symbols|title=Georgia Facts and Symbols |website=Georgia.gov|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140524123552/http://georgia.gov/georgia-facts-and-symbols|archive-date=May 24, 2014}}</ref> It was administered by the [[Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America]] under a charter issued by (and named for) [[George II of Great Britain|King George II]]. The Trustees implemented an elaborate plan for the colony's settlement, known as the [[Oglethorpe Plan]], which envisioned an agrarian society of [[Yeoman|yeoman farmers]] and prohibited slavery. The colony was [[Invasion of Georgia (1742)|invaded by the Spanish]] in 1742, during the [[War of Jenkins' Ear]]. In 1752, after the government failed to renew subsidies that had helped support the colony, the Trustees turned over control to the [[Monarchy of the United Kingdom|crown]]. Georgia became a [[Crown colony#History|crown colony]], with a governor appointed by the king of [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-816 |title=Trustee Georgia, 1732–1752 |publisher=New Georgia Encyclopedia |first1=Edward J. |last1=Cashin |date=July 27, 2009 |access-date=October 24, 2010 |archive-date=August 31, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100831065402/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-816 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The Province of Georgia was one of the [[Thirteen Colonies]] that revolted against [[British Empire|British rule]] in the [[American Revolution]]. Its delegates to the [[Second Continental Congress]], which convened in present-day [[Independence Hall]] in [[Philadelphia]], joined other delegates in unanimously approving the  [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]], which declared the Thirteen Colonies free and independent from British colonial rule.

===Independence===
Georgia's first constitution was ratified in February 1777. Georgia was the 10th state to ratify the Articles of Confederation on July 24, 1778,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/articles.html |title=The Articles of Confederation: Primary Documents of American History (Virtual Programs & Services) |publisher=Library of Congress |date=July 10, 2014 |access-date=July 27, 2014 |archive-date=February 26, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110226111738/http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/articles.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> and was the 4th state to ratify the [[United States Constitution]] on January 2, 1788.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Georgia Constitution |url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/georgia-constitution/ |orig-date=Aug 12, 2002 |date=Sep 29, 2020 |first1=LaVerne W. |last1=Hill |first2=Melvin B. |last2=Hill |access-date=2024-02-06 |website=New Georgia Encyclopedia |language=en-US}}</ref>

[[File:Family of slaves in Georgia, circa 1850.jpg|thumb|Cotton slaves in Georgia, {{Circa|1850}}]]
After the [[Creek War|Creek War (1813–1814)]], General [[Andrew Jackson]] forced the [[Muscogee Nation|Muscogee (Creek) tribes]] to surrender land to Georgia, including in the [[Treaty of Fort Jackson|Treaty of Fort Jackson (1814)]], surrendering 21 million acres in what is now southern Georgia and central Alabama, and the [[Treaty of Indian Springs (1825)]].<ref name="Remini">{{cite book|last=Remini|first=Robert|title=Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Empire, 1767–1821. Vol. 1|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=1998|isbn=0801859115|chapter=The Creek War: Victory|orig-year=1977}}</ref> In 1829, gold was discovered in the [[North Georgia mountains]] leading to the [[Georgia Gold Rush]] and establishment of a [[United States Mint|federal mint]] in [[Dahlonega, Georgia|Dahlonega]], which continued in operation until 1861. The resulting influx of [[American pioneer|American settlers]] put pressure on the [[Federal government of the United States|federal U.S. government]] to take land from the [[Cherokee Nation (1794–1907)|Cherokee Nation]]. In 1830, President [[Andrew Jackson]] signed into law the [[Indian Removal Act]], sending many eastern Indian nations to [[Indian reservation|reservations]] in present-day Oklahoma, including all of Georgia's tribes. Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in ''[[Worcester v. Georgia]]'' (1832) that U.S. states were not permitted to redraw Indian boundaries, President Jackson and the state of Georgia ignored the ruling. In 1838, his successor, [[Martin Van Buren]], dispatched federal troops to gather the tribes and deport them west of the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi]]. This forced relocation, known as the [[Trail of Tears]], led to the death of more than four thousand Cherokees.

===American Civil War===
[[File:Battle of Kenesaw Mountian.png|thumb|The [[Battle of Kennesaw Mountain]] in 1864]]
In early 1861, as the [[American Civil War]] commenced, Georgia chose to leave the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] to join the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]]. Support for secession from the Union enjoyed a slight majority among the state's delegates,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/georgia-secession-convention-1861|title=Georgia Secession Convention of 1861|website=New Georgia Encyclopedia|publisher=Georgia Humanities |first1= George |last1=Justice |date=2006 |orig-date=June 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190127205831/https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/georgia-secession-convention-1861|archive-date=January 27, 2019|access-date=January 27, 2019}}</ref> and the state ultimately became one of several major [[Theater (warfare)|military theaters]] during the Civil War.

Major battles took place at [[Battle of Chickamauga|Chickamauga]], [[Battle of Kennesaw Mountain|Kennesaw Mountain]], and [[Atlanta]]. In December 1864, a large swath of the state from Atlanta to [[Savannah, Georgia|Savannah]], was destroyed during General [[William Tecumseh Sherman]]'s [[Sherman's March to the Sea|March to the Sea]], during which 18,253 Georgian soldiers were killed, representing roughly one of every five then in service of the Confederacy.<ref>{{cite web |url-status=unfit |url=http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/versions/hr989_LC_94_5133_a_2.htm |title=A Resolution |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121030065659/http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/versions/hr989_LC_94_5133_a_2.htm |archive-date=October 30, 2012 |author=Georgia General Assembly |access-date=June 26, 2012 |id=11 LC 94 5133, House Resolution 989 }}</ref> One of the most notorious Civil War sites in the state was the [[Andersonville Prison]], where nearly 13,000 Union [[prisoners of war]] died because of inhumane conditions and ill treatment. Following the war, the camp's commander [[Henry Wirz]] was sentenced to death for [[war crimes]] and hanged, making him the highest-ranking Confederate official to be executed.<ref>{{citation|author=Kat Eschner|title=How the Trial and Death of Henry Wirz Shaped Post-Civil War America|website=Smithsonian Magazine|date=November 10, 2017|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-trial-and-death-henry-wirz-shaped-post-civil-war-america-180967139/|access-date=April 12, 2025}}</ref>

===Reconstruction and civil rights===
[[File:Sign at bus terminal in Rome, Georgia.jpg|thumb|A so-called "Colored" waiting room sign in 1943 at a bus terminal in [[Rome, Georgia]], where [[Jim Crow laws]] created "[[de jure]]" legally required [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregation]]]]
Georgia did not re-enter the Union until July 15, 1870, as the last of the former Confederate states to be re-admitted.<ref>{{citation|author=Andrew Glass|title=Georgia readmitted to Union, July 15, 1870|date=July 15, 2014|website=Politico|url=https://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/georgia-civil-war-108886|access-date=April 12, 2025}}</ref> Federal troops would continue to be stationed in the state until the end of the [[Reconstruction era]] in 1877.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Richard N. Engstrom|author2=Robert M. Howard|author3=Arnold Fleischmann|title=Georgia's Constitution and Government|publisher=University of Georgia Press|location=Atlanta, GA|year=2014|isbn=9780820371115|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pJpREQAAQBAJ|page=21-22}}</ref> With white Democrats having regained power in the state legislature, they passed a [[Poll tax (United States)|poll tax]] that year which [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] many poor black (and some white) people, preventing them from registering.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=1 |title="Atlanta in the Civil Rights Movement", Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education |publisher=Atlantahighered.org |access-date=July 27, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141009111816/http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/essay_detail.asp?phase=1 |archive-date=October 9, 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1908, the state established a [[white primary]]; with the only competitive contests within the Democratic Party, it was another way to exclude black people from politics.<ref name="auto">{{cite journal|jstor=2716218|title=Racial Violence and Social Reform-Origins of the Atlanta Riot of 1906|first=Charles|last=Crowe|date=January 1, 1968|journal=The Journal of Negro History|volume=53|issue=3|pages=234–256|doi=10.2307/2716218|s2cid=150050901 | issn = 0022-2992}}</ref> They constituted 46.7% of the state's population in 1900, but the proportion of Georgia's population that was African American dropped thereafter to 28%, primarily due to tens of thousands leaving the state during the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]].<ref name="pop/perc">[http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php Historical Census Browser, 1900 Federal Census, University of Virginia] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070823030234/http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php |date=August 23, 2007}}, accessed March 15, 2008</ref> In 1910, a secret meeting was held on [[Jekyll Island]], off Georgia's Atlantic coast, to plan for the creation of an American central banking system. The decisions made at the meeting resulted in the passing of the [[Federal Reserve Act]] of 1913.<ref>{{cite book|author=Tyler E. Bagwell|title=The Jekyll Island Club|date=1998 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing|location=Charleston, SC|isbn=9780752409351|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vJgXQdWB5kUC|page=7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Michael D. Bordo|author2=David C. Wheelock|editor1=Michael D. Bordo|editor2=William Roberds|title=The Origins, History, and Future of the Federal Reserve: A Return to Jekyll Island|chapter=The Promise and Performance of the Federal Reserve as Lender of Last Resort 1914-1913|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, UK|year=2013|isbn=9781107013728|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qiQqq5trRz8C |page=60}}</ref>

According to the [[Equal Justice Initiative]]'s 2015 report on lynching in the United States (1877–1950), Georgia had 531 deaths, the second-highest total of these extralegal executions of any state in the South. The overwhelming number of victims were black and male.<ref name="appendix">{{Cite web|url=https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf|title=''Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror'', "Supplement: Lynching by County" 2nd edition, Montgomery, Alabama: Equal Justice Initiative, 2015|website=Eji.org|access-date=April 17, 2021|archive-date=June 27, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627005306/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Many of the killings were committed by the [[white supremacist]] hate group the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK), whose second iteration was formed at Georgia's [[Stone Mountain, Georgia|Stone Mountain]] by [[William Joseph Simmons]] on November 25, 1915.<ref>{{citation|author=David B. Freeman|title=Carved in Stone The History of Stone Mountain|publisher=Mercer University Press|location=Macon, GA|year=1997|isbn=9780865545472|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NjyjVQwTwfUC|page=51-52}}</ref> The Klan's revival was spurned in part by the 1913 murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan and the lynching two years later of her convicted killer, Jewish pencil factory supervisor and [[B'nai B'rith]] Atlanta chapter president [[Leo Frank]]. The affair led to the creation of the [[Anti-Defamation League]], which successfully lobbied for Frank to be posthumously pardoned in 1986.<ref>{{citation|author=Oren Segal|title=Seeking Justice: The Pardon of Leo Frank|website=ADL|date=March 18, 2016|url=https://www.adl.org/resources/article/seeking-justice-pardon-leo-frank|access-date=April 12, 2025}}</ref> Political disfranchisement persisted through the mid-1960s, until after Congress passed the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]].

[[File:MLK Memorial in Atlanta, Georgia by George Paul Puvvada..jpg|thumb|[[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s tomb at [[Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park]] in [[Atlanta]]]]
[[Martin Luther King Jr.]], an Atlanta-born [[Baptists|Baptist minister]] who was part of the educated middle class that had developed in the city's African-American community, emerged as a national leader in the [[civil rights movement]] in the 1950s. King joined with others to form the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC) in Atlanta in 1957 to provide political leadership for the civil rights movement across the South. In 1956, riots occurred at the [[1956 Sugar Bowl|Sugar Bowl]] in Atlanta following a clash between [[Georgia Tech]]'s president [[Blake R. Van Leer]] and Governor [[Marvin Griffin]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2019/11/14/20914927/rearview-revisited-segregation-and-the-sugar-bowl-georgia-tech-pittsburgh-bobby-grier-1955-1956-game|publisher=Georgia Tech|title=Rearview Revisited: Segregation and the Sugar Bowl|first=Jake|last=Grantl|date=November 14, 2019|access-date=November 14, 2019|archive-date=November 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114161717/https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2019/11/14/20914927/rearview-revisited-segregation-and-the-sugar-bowl-georgia-tech-pittsburgh-bobby-grier-1955-1956-game|url-status=live}}</ref>

On February 5, 1958, during a training mission flown by a [[Boeing B-47 Stratojet|B-47]], a [[Mark 15 nuclear bomb]], also known as the [[Tybee Bomb]], was lost off the coast of [[Tybee Island, Georgia|Tybee Island]] near Savannah. The bomb was thought by the [[United States Department of Energy|Department of Energy]] to lie buried in silt at the bottom of [[Wassaw Sound]].<ref>{{cite news |title=For 50 Years, Nuclear Bomb Lost in Watery Grave |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18587608&t=1566568815867 |work=NPR |date=February 3, 2008 |access-date=August 23, 2019 |archive-date=May 10, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510145909/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18587608&t=1566568815867 |url-status=live }}</ref>

By the 1960s, the proportion of African Americans in Georgia had declined to 28% of the state's population, after waves of migration to the North and some immigration by whites.<ref name="pop/perc" /> With their voting power diminished, it took some years for African Americans to win a state-wide office. [[Julian Bond]], a civil rights leader, was elected to the Georgia's House of Representatives in 1965, and served multiple terms there and subsequently in Georgia's State Senate.

Atlanta mayor [[Ivan Allen Jr.]] testified before [[United States Congress|Congress]] in support of the Civil Rights Act, and Governor [[Carl Sanders]] worked with the [[Presidency of John F. Kennedy|Kennedy administration]] charged with ensuring the state's compliance. [[Ralph McGill]], editor and syndicated columnist at the ''[[Atlanta Constitution]]'', wrote supportively of civil rights movement. In 1970, [[Jimmy Carter]], who was recently elected the state's governor, declared in his inaugural address that the era of racial segregation had ended. In 1972, Georgians elected [[Andrew Young]] to Congress as the first African American Congressman since the [[Reconstruction era]].

===Late 20th and early 21st centuries===
In 1980, construction was completed on an expansion of what is now named [[Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport]] (ATL). The busiest and most efficient airport in the world, it accommodates more than a hundred million passengers annually.<ref name=HJAA>{{cite web |title=Atlanta's Hartsfield–Jackson International: Facts About The World's Busiest Airport |url=http://amaconferencecentersspeak.com/atlantas-hartsfield-jackson-international-facts-about-the-worlds-busiest-airport/ |website=amaconferencecentersspeak.com |publisher=American Management Association |access-date=January 27, 2019 |date=March 30, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190128044530/http://amaconferencecentersspeak.com/atlantas-hartsfield-jackson-international-facts-about-the-worlds-busiest-airport/ |archive-date=January 28, 2019 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Employing more than 60,000 people, the airport became a major engine for economic growth.<ref name=HJAA/> With the advantages of cheap real estate, low taxes, [[right-to-work law]]s and a regulatory environment limiting government interference, the Atlanta metropolitan area became a national center of finance, insurance, technology, manufacturing, real estate, logistics, and transportation companies, as well as the film, convention, and trade show businesses. As a testament to the city's growing international profile, in 1990 the [[International Olympic Committee]] selected [[Atlanta]] as the site of the [[1996 Summer Olympics]]. Taking advantage of Atlanta's status as a transportation hub, in 1991, [[United Parcel Service|UPS]] established its headquarters in the suburb of [[Sandy Springs]]. In 1992, construction finished on [[Bank of America Plaza (Atlanta)|Bank of America Plaza]], the tallest building in the U.S. outside of New York City or Chicago.

On February 19, 2003, Georgia adopted its current [[Flag of Georgia (U.S. state)|state flag]], resembling the state's first official flag. In 2024, it was announced that Atlanta would host multiple games during the [[2026 FIFA World Cup]], which further substantiated the economic investment and growth in the city and state.