Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

April 29 .

1824 Alfred Colquitt, a future Georgia governor and member of both houses of Congress, was born in Walton County, Ga. [See Mar. 26 entry for more biographical information.]

1861 In Montgomery, Ala., President Jefferson Davis announced the ratification of the Confederate Constitution in a message to the Confederate Congress.

1913 Mary Phagan's funeral was held, during which her mother was overcome with grief several times. Most of the suspicion continued to fall on Newt Lee, though plant supervisor Leo Frank was brought in again for more detailed questioning. After his interrogation, Frank questioned Lee himself. Police had found a bloody shirt in Lee's home, but he claimed it was his own blood from an injury. The reward for information leading to the conviction of the murderer was raised to $2200 -- $1000 from the Atlanta Constitution, $1000 from the city of Atlanta, and $200 from the state. One of the detectives released the following statement: "We have sufficient evidence to convict the murderers of Mary Phagan. More arrests will be made before daybreak. The mystery is cleared." However, no names were mentioned. As it turned out, Leo Frank was arrested as a material witness.

1926 On his fourth visit to Georgia and his third to Warm Springs, Franklin D. Roosevelt closed the deal in which he bought most of the property on and surrounding the Warm Springs resort area.

1950 On this date the Air Force formally dedicated Dobbins Air Force Base in Cobb County in honor of the late Capt. Charles M. Dobbins and in memory of the other servicemen from Cobb and Fulton Counties, and of Georgia, "whose deeds and sacrifices will forever be honored." A native of Marietta, Capt. Dobbins graduated from Georgia Tech in 1939. On July 11, 1943, the troop transport plane he was piloting on a night paratroop mission was shot down by anti-aircraft fire as it proceeded out to sea near Gela, Sicily. The plane and crew were never found. Capt. Dobbins flew eighty-eight bombardment missions in the North African campaign and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and a variety of other medals. His unit had been awarded the Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation. [Contributed by Dr. Tom Scott, Kennesaw State University]

1966 In the Braves first season in Atlanta, Hank Aaron hit his first home run in Atlanta in a game against the Houston Astros. This was Aaron's 405th career home run. Over the next eight years, he would hit over 300 more home runs to become the Major League's all-time home-run king.

1988 Waycross-born Burt Reynolds married Loni Anderson.

1988 The U.S. Olympic Committee selected Atlanta over Minneapolis-St. Paul as the U.S. city that will be allowed to bid on the 1996 Summer Olympics. In September 1987, 14 U.S. cities had submitted bids to the U.S.O.C., which later narrowed the choice to two -- Atlanta and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

1997 A ten-day protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia ends.

2003 A mild earthquake (4.9 on the Richter scale) hit most of northwest Georgia.
 
 

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1742 Many of the Georgia colonists were unprepared for the stifling heat they would face, as evidenced by the following entry from William Stephens' journal in 1742:

"April 29, Thursday. The Heats were now come on so violent and uncommon at this Season that every body was glad to take Shelter during the middle of the day."

Source: E. Merton Coulter (ed.), The Journal of William Stephens, 1741-1743 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1959), p. 71.

1861 From Calhoun County, William P. Harrison wrote Georgia governor Joe Brown of concerns that some local slaves were not working because of the widespread rumor that the Union Army would soon arrive to set them free:

"In view of the late exciting news from the city of Washington and elsewhere, a strong feeling of enthusiasm has spread over this county in relation to getting a volunteer company ready to tender their service to you and to be ready to march at a moment's warning.

"Within the last week, some very unexpected and extraordinary developments have come to light among the slave population, which is quite numerous in this vicinity. The idea seems to have gotten out extensively among them that they are soon all to be free, that Mr. Lincoln and his army are coming to set them free, to kill all the white people and set them free, that they are to assist Lincoln in killing all the white men and boys, that Lincoln and the British are to set them free and support them twelve months, that there is no use in planting their rice patches, supposed they would have been free on the 14th of March, &c., &c. There is some reason to suspect that there are low white men in the country who have communicated with the Negroes."

Mills Lane (ed.), Georgia: History written by Those who lived It (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1995), pp. 141-142.