Ed Jackson and Charly Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

June 30

1665 Two years after creating the colony of Carolina to consist of all land in North America between 36th and 31st parallels (an area that included over 90 percent of present-day Georgia), King Charles II issued a second Carolina charter. The northern boundary was now extended a half degree north to 36°30'. Carolina's southern boundary was extended two full degrees southward to 29° -- which lay 60 miles south of St. Augustine, the capital of Spanish Florida. For the first time, England exerted a formal claim to all of present-day Georgia. The claim also put England and Spain on an eventual collision course over control of what would be called "the debatable land."

1785 After a short illness, Georgia founder James Edward Oglethorpe died at age 88 1/2. At his side was Elizabeth, his wife of 41 years. His death came at Cranham Hall, an Essex estate inherited by his wife prior to their marriage. Only 100 feet away from Cranham Hall is the Parish Church of All Saints, where the Oglethorpes were members for four decades. Not only was the general's funeral service held here, but a burial vault for the church's most famous parishioner was created beneath the floor at the center front of the church.

1906 John Hope became the first black president of Atlanta's Morehouse College.

1918 Actress Susan Hayward was born in Brooklyn, New York. Nominated for an Academy Award for best actress in 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1955, she would win the 1958 Oscar for her performance of Barbara Graham in the movie, "I WANT TO LIVE!" -- the story of a woman is sentenced to die in the gas chamber for murder. In her later life, Hayward spent several years in Carrollton, Georgia. She returned to Hollywood, where she died on March 14, 1975. Her body was returned to Carrollton, where she was buried next to her husband, who had died in 1966.

1928 Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived in Warm Springs, Georgia for a brief visit before returning to work on Democratic candidate Al Smith's presidential election campaign. Ultimately Smith would lose the election, but Roosevelt would be persuaded to run for governor of New York, an election he narrowly won. This marked Roosevelt's thirteenth Georgia visit.

1936 Margaret Mitchell's epic novel Gone With the Wind first went on sale to the public in New York City.

1937 The Atlanta Constitution carried a story announcing that work would soon begin on Georgia's first four-lane highway -- a freeway that would connect Atlanta with Marietta. A contract subsequently was awarded on July 16, and the first link of the new highway completed by mid-May of 1938.

1965 The National Football League awarded Rankin Smith, Sr. an NFL football franchise for the Atlanta Falcons.

1968 The first C-5A completed its initial flight from the Dobbins runways in Marietta. Almost three years earlier, in September 1965, Lockheed had been chosen to develop this extra-large airlifter. With the war in Vietnam raging, the work force at Lockheed-Georgia was nearing peak strength. Maximum employment would come in September 1969 when 32,945 were on the payroll in Marietta, with a thousand additional employees at six subassembly plants. [Contributed by Dr. Tom Scott, Kennesaw State University]

1974 Martin Luther King Jr.'s mother was killed while playing the organ at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

1979 MARTA, in operation as a bus service since 1972, opened its first rapid rail service with the East Line. The fare was 25 cents.

1986 Georgia's anti-sodomy law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme court in the case of Bowers v. Hardwick.

1986 The U.S. Postal Service issued a Margaret Mitchell stamp honoring the Georgia author on the 50th anniversary of the public release of her novel, Gone With the Wind.First day of issue ceremonies were held in Atlanta, Ga.
 
 

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1740 From Eustatia Island in the harbor of St. Augustine, Capt. Norbury wrote Walter Hayter on the status of the siege of the Spanish fortress, the Castillo de San Marcos:

"I have just time to acquaint you that I, General Oglethorpe and all his officers and his regiment are well, and that now we are very busy in bombarding and cannonading the two and castle of Saint Augustine and have made our approaches with our cannon and mortars within half a mile of the town and have done great execution in knocking down and burning with our shells part of the town and castle. And the enemy fire upon us day and night from the town, castle and their galleys and launches balls from 24-, 18- and 9-pounders but as yet have done us little damage. Only one of our men had both his legs taken off with one of them. We are all very well entrench and are now going to attack the town and Castle. General Oglethorpe is marched with a strong detachment from this island to the main called Moucey [Mose or Mosa] or the Negroes' Fort, to attack the town and castle and to surround them and keep them in. The remainder of our forces with the Carolina Regiment, commanded by Colonel Vanderdussen, Rangers and Indians are to attack on the left of the town and, the men of war's men to the amount of 200 are to attack the Spanish galleys in their boats and galleys, and by a single given we all storm at once, and under God and in so just a war, we shall carry it. . . ."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), General Oglethorpe's Georgia: Colonial Letters, 1733-1743 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 19909), Vol. II, pp. 462-463.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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