• Okefenokee Swamp encompasses over 400,000 acres of canals; moss draped cypress trees and lily pad prairies providing sanctuaries for hundreds of species of birds and wildlife including several endangered species.

• Cumberland Island National Seashore contains the ruins of Dungeness, the once magnificent Carnegie estate.  In addition, wild horses graze among wind swept dunes.

• Historic Saint Mary’s Georgia is the second oldest city in the nation.                                                    

• The City of Savannah was the first steamship to cross the Atlantic.  It sailed from Georgia.

• Ways Station was renamed Richmond Hill on May 1, 1941, taking the name of automaker Henry Ford’s winter estate.

• The pirate Edward “Blackbeard” Teach made a home on Blackbeard Island.  The United Congress designated the Blackbeard Island Wilderness Area in 1975 and it now has a total of 3,000 acres.

• The official state fish is the Largemouth Bass.

• In Gainesville, the Chicken capital of the world, it is illegal to eat chicken with a fork.

• Georgia was named for King George II of England.

• Stone Mountain near Atlanta is one of the largest single masses of exposed granite in the world.

• Georgia is the nation’s number one producer of the three P’s-peanuts, pecans, and peaches.

• At the Hawkinsville Civitan Club’s Annual Shoot the Bull Barbecue Championship, people from all over Georgia and surrounding states flock to this small southern Georgia town to enter their tasty barbecue concoctions in this famous cook-off.  The funds raised from this event benefit the Civitan International Research Center and its work toward a cure for Down’s syndrome and other developmental disabilities.

• Each year Georgia serves as host to the International Poultry Trade Show, the largest poultry convention in the world.

• The oldest portable steam engine in the United States on display at the Historic Railroad Shops in Savannah, Georgia.

• Known as the sweetest onion in the world, the Vidalia onion can only be grown in the fields around Vidalia and Glennville.

• Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi River.

• Georgia’s population in 1776 was around 40,000.

• Cordele claims to be the watermelon capital of the world.

• The annual Masters Golf Tournament is played at the Augusta National in Augusta Georgia every first week of April.

• Georgia is often called the Empire State of the South and is also known as the Peach State.

• In 1828, Auraria, near the city of Dahlongea, was the site of the first Gold Rush in America.

• Coca-Cola was invented in May 1886 by Dr. John S. Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia.  Coca-Cola was first sold at a soda fountain in Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta by Willis Venable.

• Berry College in Rome, Georgia has the world’s largest college campus.

• The Little White House in Warm Springs was the recuperative home of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• In 1942, Jekyll Island was a private resort sold to the state by the owners, a group of millionaires.

• Providence Canyon State Park, near Lumpkin, Georgia, is known as the Little Grand Canyon of Georgia.

• The Cherokee rose is the official state flower, the Live Oak is the official state tree; and the Brown Thrasher is the official state bird.

• United States Highway 27 runs the length of Georgia and is known as Martha Berry Highway, named after a pioneer educator-Martha Berry.

• Marshall Forest in Rome, Georgia is the only natural forest within a city limits in the United States.

• The popular theme park – Six Flags over Georgia, was actually named for the six flags that few over Georgia:  England, Spain, Liberty, Georgia, Confederate States of America, and the United States.

• The locomotive engine popularly known as the General is housed in The Big Shanty Museum in Kennesaw.  It was stolen in the Andrews Railroad Raid in 1862 and later depicted in the Great Locomotive Chase, a popular movie.

• The name of the famous southern Georgia swamp, the Okefenokee, is derived from an Indian word meaning the trembling earth.

• Brasstown Bald Mountain is the highest point in Georgia.  It has an elevation of 4,784.

• The Cyclorama is a three dimensional panorama that depicts the famous Battle of Atlanta, and is located in Grant Park in Atlanta.

• Thomasville is known as the City of Roses.

• Chickamauga National Park is the site of the bloodiest battle in American history.

• Plains, Georgia is the home of Jimmy Carter, the 39^th President.

• The figures of Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee make up the world’s largest sculpture.  It is located on the face of Stone Mountain.  Additionally, Robert E. Lee’s horse, Traveler, is also carved at the same place.

• Savannah was the landing site for General James Edward Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia.

• The world’s largest Infantry training center is located at Fort Benning, Georgia.

• The largest Farmer’s Market is located in Forest Park.

• Ralph Bunch, United States diplomat, was the first Georgian to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

• Callaway Gardens is a world famous family resort, known for its azaleas.

• Wesleyan College in Macon was the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women.

• Madison is known for its beautiful antebellum homes spared during Sherman’s fiery march to the sea.

• Chehaw in Albany is a well known wild animal park.

• Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon is the largest archeological development east of the Mississippi River.

• Athens is the location of the first university chartered and supported by state funds.

·         Once Georgia was a narrow strip between the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers, and stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, including the present site of Los Angeles, California.  It looked like this, when King George II granted its charter on June 9, 1732.  Today, it is about 250 miles long and 320 miles wide, covers 59,878 square miles.

• Fort Augusta was named for the Princess of Wales, whom the twenty-nine year old Frederick had married on April 27, 1736.

• Dr. Crawford Long, a physician who practiced in the quiet little town of Jefferson, Georgia, discovered that sulphuric ether could be used as an anesthetic for pain and was the first to publish what he had done. 

• Augusta Baldwin Longstreet (author of “Georgia Scenes”) of Augusta, Georgia was the first Georgian to become nationally famous as an author.  His father William Longstreet invented the steamboat.

• Joanna Troutman, a sixteen-year-old girl from Crawford County, Georgia became a Texas heroine by making the Lone Star State Flag which is the emblem of the State of Texas today. 

• In 1837, a trip from Milledgeville, Georgia to Washington D.C. took seven days and nineteen hours!

• In 1819, businessmen from Savannah sent the first steamship across the Atlantic Ocean.  It was named The Savannah.  The return home from Europe to America took six weeks.

• On National Maritime Day in 1958, the keel of another Savannah was laid.  It was the first atomic-powered merchant ship in the world.  It was launched on July 21, 1959 for a historic trip across the Atlantic. 

• The first railroad to be chartered was the Georgia Railroad in 1832.  It was a venture undertaken by Athens citizens and others in that area. 

•  In 1874, Georgia set up the first state department of agriculture in the nation.

• Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) of Macon, Georgia, was Georgia’s first top-ranking poet, often spoken of as “the poet of the south”.  Lanier County and Lake Sidney Lanier were named for him.

• Dr. Charles Herty of Milledgeville discovered a method of making paper of out pine tree pulp in 1867.

• Juliette Gordon Low “whose nickname was Daisy” of Savannah, Georgia, founded the Girl Scouts of America on March 12, 1912.

• Adel, the county seat, was incorporated in 1889. This is where over a third of the county's population resides. The city's name was derived from the center letters of the word "PhilADELphia". Its former name was "Puddleville" because of the puddles of water that stood in the streets after big rains. Of course this was before the streets were paved and a modern water treatment facility was installed.

• In 1823, Georgia became the first state to require birth registration.

• Wesleyan College in Macon was the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women.
  
  
• Hahira is the Honey Bee Capital.      

• In the 1930s, the Department of Agriculture paid farmers up to $8 an acre to cultivate kudzu to help control erosion.

• John Henry "Doc" Holliday was a daring Southern gentleman from Griffin Georgia.