Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

January 30

1733 James Oglethorpe and the Georgia colonists sailed out of Port Royal aboard a small flotilla of six boats. They proceeded southward on the inland waterway. However, a storm soon halted their progress, and they were forced to spend the night on a coastal island. [See map]

[Note: Letters, diaries, and records of this time show dates based on the Julian calendar (referred to as "Old Style") then in effect in Britain and the American colonies. The Gregorian calendar ("New Style") was adopted in 1752. Thus, Jan. 30, 1732/33 (Old Style) represents Feb. 10, 1733 under the calendar now in effect. For a fuller explanation, click here.]

1788 The Georgia legislature passed a resolution calling for convening of a convention in Augusta to draft a new state constitution as soon as the ninth state has ratified the new U.S. Constitution. That convention met the following Nov. 4.

1829 Confederate general Alfred Cumming was born in Augusta, Ga. He graduated from West Point in 1849. After Georgia's secession, Cumming resigned his commission and became a lieutenant colonel in the Augusta Volunteer Battalion, a major in the 1st Georgia,and a lieutenant colonel in the 10th Georgia. Cumming participated in the Peninsula campaign and the battles of Malvern Hill, Crampton's Gap, and Sharpsburg. In 1862, he was promoted to colonel and then to brigadier general. Captured at Vicksburg and paroled, Cumming then commanded his own brigade at Missionary Ridge, during Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, and at the battles at Resaca and Jonesboro. After the war, Cumming became a farmer, also serving on the American Military Commission to Korea. He died on Dec. 5, 1910 in Rome, Ga.

1861 Gov. Joseph E. Brown appointed coastal planter Thomas Butler King as commissioner to Queen Victoria of Great Britain, Napoleon III of France, and the King Leopold of Belgium to explain the reasons for and consequences of Georgia's secession and to further promote direct trade with Georgia.

1882 Franklin D. Roosevelt was born at Hyde Park, New York. Elected to the New York state senate in 1910, two years later, he was named Assistant U.S. Secretary of Navy by Pres. Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Roosevelt agreed to be Democratic presidential nominee James Cox's running mate. After losing the election, Roosevelt began practicing law in New York. In 1921, he was suddenly stricken with polio. Three years later, Roosevelt began visiting Warm Springs, Ga. after hearing reports that the thermal waters there had cured one victim of polio. [Thus began a series of one or more visits every year until his death--with the sole exception of 1942. These visits are detailed in the FDR's Ties to Georgia web site.]

In 1928, voters of New York elected Roosevelt governor of the state. He took office on Jan. 1, 1929. Ten months later, the stock market collapsed precipitating the Great Depression. Reelected governor in 1930, Roosevelt decided to have his own house built at Warm Springs for use during his treatments. What would become known as the Little White House was completed in the spring of 1932. That summer, the Democratic Party nominated him to run for president. Voters overwhelmingly elected Roosevelt president in November 1932, and he would subsequently be reelected a record three more times. On April 12, 1945, Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage while visiting his Little White House.

1892 In the first intercollegiate football game in Athens (and in the deep south), the University of Georgia beat Mercer 50-0.

1895 Susan B. Anthony arrived in Atlanta to preside over the 27th annual meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

1935 Martin Luther King Sr. staged a protest against segregated elevators at the Fulton County Courthouse.

1956 In Montgomery, Ala., a bomb was thrown onto the porch of Martin Luther King Jr.'s home. Though he was not home, Coretta Scott King, a friend, and infant Yolanda King were home--but no one was injured.

1956 State senators Willis Harden of Commerce, Jefferson Lee Davis of Cartersville, W.K. Posnell of Waycross, James McBride of Leesburg, B.M. Jones of Dallas, and N.C. Coffin of Cuthbert introduced S.B. 98, a bill to replace the red and white bars of Georgia's state flag with the Confederate battle flag. The bill was assigned to the Committee on Defense and Veteran Affairs. Credit for the flag design goes to John Sammons Bell, then an Atlanta attorney and chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party (and later a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals).

1961 Dexter Scott King, third child of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, was born in Atlanta.

1994 The Super Bowl was played in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta; the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Buffalo Bills.

2000 The Super Bowl was played in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta; the St. Louis Rams defeated the Tennessee Titans.

2001 The Georgia Senate passed a bill authorizing a new state flag by a vote of 34-22. The bill passed without Senate amendments, meaning that it could be forwarded on to the governor for approval.

2006 Coretta Scott King, widow of civil rights pioneer Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., died in Mexico, where she was staying after suffering a stroke late in 2005.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1742 From the founding of Savannah, James Oglethorpe had believed that unlike beer and wine, rum was a particularly dangerous drink. He repeatedly reported to the Trustees back in London his belief that much of the illness and death suffered by the Georgia colonists was directly attributed to the drinking of rum. This belief was later shared by Georgia president William Stephens, who fought a seemingly endless, and ultimately fruitless, battle against rum in Georgia:

"...Divers other Persons who were presented for Misdemeanours, were also tryed, and found Guilty, among whom was one that retailed Spiritous Liquors, for which offence he was fined 5 pds. pursuant to the Act. If our Jurys hence forward would proceed in this way, certainly twould put a Stop to many great Evils, which we often find to be the Consequence of the Common People debauching themselves with Rum. ..."

Source: E. Merton Coulter (ed.), The Journal of William Stephens, 1741-1743 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1959), p. 37.