Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

August 3

1904 Atlanta experienced its first recorded automobile fatality. Returning home from Atlanta, prominent Marietta resident Frank Reynolds lost control of his White Steamer on a downhill curve in Fulton County. The car turned over throwing Reynolds, his wife, and two passengers into the road. Reynolds died at the scene of the accident and his wife was critically injured, though the other two passengers escaped serious injury.

1910 The General Assembly ratified the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, making Georgia the ninth state to approve a national income tax. (For the chronology of the amendment's proposal and ratification, click here. For the history and purpose of the amendment, click here.)

1913 This was a Sunday and the trial of Leo Frank took a break. Numerous friends and relatives came by the Fulton County jail to visit Frank. Jail officials said Frank was showing little evidence of stress from the trial. Click here for a detailed accounting of the case.

1964 Noted writer Flannery O'Connor died in Milledgeville at age 39 . Born in Savannah in 1925, O'Connor attended Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville, graduating in 1945. (To view the Georgia College and State University's Flannery O'Connor Collection, click here.)In 1947, she graduated with a masters from Iowa State, publishing her first novel the same year. In 1950, O'Connor was stricken with lupus, the same disease that killed her father. For the rest of her brief life, she would battle the disease while continuing to write.

1990 The World of Coca-Cola opened in Atlanta.

1996 This was sixteenth day of the 1996 Summer Olympics -- and day 15 of Olympic competition. 

1997 Former Atlanta Braves knuckleballer Phil Niekro was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. For a special tribute to Niekro's introduction, click here. For a series of Sports Illustrated articles on Niekro dating back to 1969, click here.

Georgia cities and towns incorporated by acts approved on Aug. 3:

1920 Blythe (Richmond and Burke counties)
 
 

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1737 In London, James Oglethorpe dined with the Earl of Egmont and three other Trustees. During the meal, Oglethorpe (who was in England lobbying for a British regiment stationed in Georgia under his command) told of Spanish demands that all English colonists in Georgia must leave, as recorded by Egmont in his diary:

". . . Mr. Oglethorp [sic] acquainted us that Fitzgerald, the Spanish Agent, had been with Sir Robert Walpole with renewal of complaints against Georgia in an insolent manner. He told he he had a second memorial to deliver . . . on the subject of the settlement of Georgia by English subjects,which country belong to Spain from the southward up northward as far as 33 degrees and 50 minutes north latitude [a claim that would have included the entire South Carolina coast]; that England had been encroaching on the Spanish dominions ever since the Revolution, but his Majesty of Spain finding himself in good condition is resolved to re-annex all that formerly belonged to the Spanish Monarch; that he hoped there had been time enough given since the last memorial [in 1736] for the English settled in Georgia to remove; that as he had given himself up much to God's service, he was desirous to see his own dominions restored to him without Christian bloodshed, but if otherwise it would not lie at his door; that unless the English removed by fair means, his Governors know how to oblige them thereto by force, and if His Majesty of Great Britain should send over any troops, and particularly Mr. Oglethorpe to command them, he should take it for a declaration of war."

Source: Historical Manuscripts Commission [U.K.], Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont. Diary of the First Earl of Egmont (Viscount Percival) (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1923), Vol. II, pp. 426-427.

1739 William Stephens had to oversee one of his more unpleasant duties on this day:

"Friday. This was the fatal Day, which called those wretched Criminals for Murder, out of Prison to Execution . . . and Gallows now were prepared, at the Place where Orders had been given about it. . . . Before the Hour of Execution came, the Magistrates met, to consider farther [sic] of Levett's Case; whose Sickness and Weakness at the Time when the Murder was committed, inclined Abundance of People to believe that he was not one who actually gave any of the Wounds to the Deceased. . . Wherefore it was resolved to reprieve him for two Months . . . At the Gallows, Brixy, the Master, behaved very resolutely, confessed nothing, nor absolutely denied any Thing. . . He went up the Ladder more nimbly than the Hangman, and fastened the Rope to the Beam himself: Then turning about to the Spectators, he told them he was satisfied to die (which was interpreted variously by several) and after a short Prayer, he was turned off. Cozens owned himself to have been a very wicked Man; for which, he said, God's Vengeance had overtaken him: He behaved with Penitence in Prison, and now also; but made no confession of the Guilt from which he suffered. . . . Levett was conducted to the Foot of the Ladder, after the other two were turned off, before his Reprieve was declared: He made great Lamentation for his former Course of Life, and appeared under much Terror; but continued to deny he saw the Wounds given; and was so affected with his unexpected Reprieve, that he was very near losing his Life by an excessive Return and Flow of Spirits . . . ."

Source: William Stephens, A Journal of the Proceedings in Georgia (London: 1742) as reprinted (no city cited: Readex Microprint Corp.,1966) Vol. II, pp. 81-83.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

If you have a date related to Georgia history or people that ought to be included, or if know of entries that should be corrected, send a note to Ed Jackson or Charles Pou.

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