Moving Through Georgia

How Gold Mining Works

A quick discussion of the tools and processes that were used in Georgia to find gold.

Ty Cobb

Ty Cobb was one of the best baseball players ever.  Through the years he gained a reputation as a drinker, a fighter, and a racist- but this reputation may not have been deserved.  For years all I knew about Cobb was that he was from Banks County and that he was a jerk; of course there is more to the story than that.  

Looking Through the Papers Yet Again

A short look at some of the items found in local newspapers around the turn of the century.

Five counties in ten minutes

How five Northeast Georgia counties got their names, all explained in just under ten minutes- before 'Freebird' runs out.  We discuss who Elbert, Lumpkin, Forsyth, and Towns county were named after, and find one county in Georgia that was named after the ugliest man in England. 

Samuel Upham- Confederate Counterfeiter

Millions of counterfeit greybacks flooded the South at the start of the Civil War, causing economic mayhem.  The cause of these fakes did business out of a little stationary shop in Philadelphia, advertised in the local paper, and never once feared the law.  

James Longstreet and Monday morning quarterbacks

James Longstreet had a long and impressing military career, including being called General Lee's 'Old War Horse".  After the war, however, criticism of his personal politics and his conduct during Gettysburg would cause some to think of him as a traitor to the Southern cause. 

This week, the career of a Gainesville resident who rests in Alta Vista Cemetery.

The Declaration of Independence in Modern English

The Declaration of Independence as it might have been written today.  This was published by an organization called The Pacific Legal Foundation in an effort to help people understand the rights we were asserting, and were willing to die for, on July Fourth.

The Declaration of Independence- in American

In 1921 the writer H.L. Mencken published the Declaration of Independence in what he called 'American'.  It wasn't the King's English, or the Queen's either.  

The Nuclear Airplane

It seems like a good idea- power an airplane with a small nuclear reactor so it can stay aloft indefinitely.  The one problem the engineers in the Dawsonville Forest facility faced- how do you do it?

The Cotton Gin

From fifth grade history onward you need to know one fact: Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin.  If he didn't invent it, he did take the credit for it.  Whitney and others revolutionize the production of cotton fabric in this extra episode.