1. The Varsity in Atlanta serves more Coca-Cola than any other single restaurant in the world. It's only fitting because the drive-in is located just a few blocks away from Coke's world headquarters.
2. The Peach State produces a lot more peanuts, blueberries and pecans than it does peaches.
3. The Georgia Colony was founded in 1733 as a haven for debtors, and slavery wasn't allowed.
4. Some other things that weren't allowed in the new colony named after King George II were liquor, lawyers and Catholics. Although none of these restrictions lasted long.
5. Originally, the Georgia Colony extended west all the way to the Mississippi River.
6. Georgia contains no natural lakes of any significant size. All the major lakes in Georgia are man made.
7. But it does contain the largest swamp in North America—the Okefenokee.
8. Two famous gun-slinging outlaws more associated with the Wild West came from Georgia: Doc Holliday was born in Griffin and grew up in Valdosta; "Pretty Boy" Floyd hailed from Bartow County.
9. It's where Muhammad Ali first fought under his new name after changing it from Cassius Clay, resisting the draft and being banned from boxing for three years. The fight against Jerry Quarry took place in Atlanta in 1970. Ali won in three rounds.
10. Only one county in the state is named after a woman—Hart County. Nancy Hart was a Revolutionary War heroine.
11. Washington, founded in 1780, was the first town in the U.S. to be named after George Washington.
12. It has the second-most number of counties of any state in the U.S. (Texas has the most).
13. Eighteen-year-olds could vote in Georgia twenty-eight years before the 26th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1971.
14. Atlanta's most common nickname was once "The City In A Forest," and it still has the most tree cover of any major U.S. metropolitan area.
15. The University of Georgia was the first public university in the U.S. It received a charter from the state in 1785.
16. Blackbeard Island on the Georgia coast is named after the infamous pirate Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, who used to plunder ships in the waters nearby.
17. Oliver Hardy, of the famous Hollywood comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, was born and raised in Harlem. Yes, there's a Harlem, Georgia.
18. Augusta played an important role in early movie history during the silent film era. Many movies were filmed there and it was briefly touted as the new Hollywood.
19. Today, more major motion pictures are filmed in Georgia than in Hollywood.
20. But "Gone With the Wind" wasn't filmed in Georgia, where the story took place. It was filmed in Hollywood and other places in California.
21. It's home to the world's largest contiguous college campus: Berry College in Rome, founded by Martha Berry in the late 19th century as the Berry Schools.
22. It's was once home to the largest kangaroo herd outside of Australia. The Kangaroo Conservation Center in Dawsonville closed in 2010 and the herd was shipped off to zoos and other animal facilities around the world.
23. Atlanta's most famous street—Peachtree—is named after an old Creek Indian community called "Standing Peachtree," which is a misnomer due to bad translation. Peachtree really meant "pitch" tree, aka pine tree.
24. Long before the '49ers headed west, Dahlonega was the site of the first gold rush in the nation during the late 1820s. The town even had a U.S. mint that produced gold coins with the "D" mark until 1861.
25. Georgia has both a city and a county named Decatur, after Stephen Decatur, a U.S. naval hero in the War of 1812 who never set foot in either landlocked place.
26. Bainbridge, the county seat of Decatur County, is named after another U.S. naval hero—William Bainbridge—who was jealous of the much more famous Stephen Decatur. It was Bainbridge who helped to arrange a duel between Decatur and another naval officer—James Barron—in which Decatur was mortally wounded.
27. Jekyll Island and Stone Mountain aren't state parks like many residents believe. They both sit on state-controlled land but aren't part of the Georgia State Parks system.
28. It's one of the few places in the country where wild horses still roam free along a beach, at Cumberland Island National Seashore.
29. Tara, the plantation made famous in "Gone With the Wind," doesn't exist, and never did. It's a product of Margaret Mitchell's imagination based on an amalgam of different plantations and homes, including her own family's.
30. As late as 1969, Atlanta was the only place in Georgia where you could legally order a mixed drink. Men were required to wear a coat and tie, ladies, appropriate dresses.
31. Underground Atlanta isn't, nor was it ever, underground. It was created in the 1920s by bridges raising the street level of downtown that made the former street level seem subterranean.
32. FDR died in Georgia posing for a self portrait while World War II was still raging. You can still see the half-finished portrait at the Little White House State Historic Site in Warm Springs.
33. It has seven official natural wonders. The Seven Natural Wonders of Georgia are: Amicalola Falls, the Okefenokee Swamp, Providence Canyon, Radium Springs, Stone Mountain, Tallulah Gorge and Warm Springs.
34. Providence Canyon isn't natural. It was created by erosion due to the poor land use practices of Georgia farmers in the 1800s. What used to be a series of small drainage gullies is today known as Georgia's "Little Grand Canyon."
35. The number one agricultural product in Georgia—more than blueberries, pecans and peaches—is something called a "broiler." That means chicken.
36. The Okefenokee Swamp contains giant floating bogs with trees that can easily be mistaken for solid earth. Native Americans called it "the land of the trembling earth," or Okefenokee, because the land seemed to move when they walked on it.
37. The first public housing project in the U.S.—Atlanta's Techwood Homes—opened in 1935. FDR gave the dedication speech. The project housed only white residents until 1968.
38. What's called CNN Center today was once home to the world's first entirely indoors amusement park. The World of Sid and Marty Krofft was based on the popular TV shows of the 1970s produced by the sibling team. It lasted six months.
39. One feature from The World of Sid and Marty Krofft that still exists is the world's longest freestanding escalator—meaning it's supported only at the ends. Today, a ride up the eight-story-high escalator is how visitors begin the CNN Studio Tour.
40. Jackie Robinson was born in Georgia in 1919, then his family moved to California in 1920, where he grew up. The 2013 film "42" about Robinson was filmed mostly in Georgia.
41. In the film "42" when you see a crowd of baseball fans walking down the street towards Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn, you're actually looking at a street in the tiny town of Social Circle in Georgia. The image of the long-demolished stadium was a computer generated effect.
42. When he was sworn in to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1914, Carl Vinson of Georgia was the youngest person ever to serve in Congress. He was 30. Vinson went on to serve for over 50 years in the house, the first person to do so.
43. The youngest confederate soldier was from Ellijay, Georgia. David Bailey Freeman was 11 years old when he joined, not as a drummer boy, but as an actual soldier.
44. The city of Atlanta wasn't really that old or big when Sherman burned it to the ground in 1864. The city was incorporated in 1847, had roughly 10,000 residents at the start of the Civil War and a much smaller population by the time Sherman arrived with his troops and torches.
45. The name Atlanta is a variation on Atlantic, not after the ocean but from the city's railroad connection. It was almost called "Atlantica-Pacifica," but was shortened to the much more agreeable “Atlanta.”
46. The town of Madison escaped Sherman's fiery March to the Sea, but not because he found it "too beautiful to burn" as is often stated. He made an agreement to spare Madison because a Union senator and fellow West Point grad had a home there.
47. Macon has more cherry blossom trees than any other city in the world, including Washington D.C.
48. Macon contains one of the largest archeological sites east of the Mississippi, at Ocmulgee National Monument, a site where there has been 17,000 years of human habitation.
49. Indian Springs State Park was one of the first state parks in the U.S., established in 1931. Before that it was a public park, a bustling 19-century resort town and a place of gathering and healing for the Creek tribe. People still come to gather water from the springs.
50. No one knows who is responsible for the Georgia Guidestones in Elberton. This granite monument with a set of guidelines engraved in multiple languages is also called "American Stonehenge" and was ordered to be built in 1979 by a mysterious person using the pseudonym R. C. Christian.
What's your favorite Georgia fun fact? Tell us in the comments below!
