Atlanta is the capital and largest city of the US state of Georgia. It is the center of the ninth largest metropolitan area in the United States, with a population of more than 5.6 million. It is the ninth largest city in the USA and at the same time the fastest growing city – the city itself has around half a million inhabitants. Atlanta is the seat of Fulton County, but today part of the city extends into DeKalb County.
Atlanta is an important economic center of the American Southeast. It reached its peak after the civil war. With the development of the textile industry, new job opportunities began to be created, which attracted many African-American immigrants to the city. Today, they make up the largest ethnic group in the city with 61.4%. It is also thanks to them that Atlanta became famous in the world especially as the cradle of hip-hop, R&B and crunk musical styles – the most famous musicians include Lil Jon, Bow Wow, Outkast, Usher, Ludacris and many others.
According to iamaccepted, Atlanta is also a city of sports, hosting the 1996 Summer Olympics. CNN has its headquarters here, as well as large banks and institutions that provide people with jobs. A kind of rarity that attracts many visitors is the Coca-Cola museum. In the museum, you will learn interesting information about the history of the drink and you can also taste the products that this brand sells all over the world – from Inka Cola from Peru, before mango juice, to the novelty in the form of chocolate-mint cola.
You’ll also find a neighborhood that focuses mostly on the history of black residents. It commemorates their struggle and journey for freedom, the struggle for their civil rights. Next to the beautiful Ebenezer Baptist Church, a never-extinguishing fire burns at the grave of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It reminds of the hard struggle of a fighter for civil rights. A little further away is the King Center documenting the life journey of this extraordinary man.
Atlanta is home to one of the largest aquariums in the world. They have beluga whales, giant sharks, seals or Japanese crabs with a span of up to 4 meters. Atlanta also has one of America’s busiest airports. Otherwise, the city is surrounded by pine forests and you can also find interesting rocky areas in the vicinity.
Andersonville National Historic Site
In the southwest of the US state of Georgia lies the town of Andersonville, which became infamous during the American Civil War. At the time, the town was called Camp Sumter and was home to one of the largest and harshest Confederate military prisons in the US. It was built in 1864 during the Civil War and subsequently housed a large number of North American Federal prisoners from Richmond.
This site was chosen by Captain W. Sidney Winder because of its location in the deep south of the country, near a source of clean water and also a railroad. The prison had appalling living conditions, which is why it soon became one of the most feared places in the country. The prison was even given the label of a place from which no one will return alive. Unfortunately, this information was based on fact. The camp existed for a year and two months, and during that time more than 45,000 captured Union soldiers lived here.
Over 13,000 people died in Andersonville due to various diseases, poor sanitation, malnutrition and constant hardship. In addition, the prison was originally built “only” for 10 thousand prisoners, but due to poor organization and exchange of prisoners, there were many times more in the end. The fact that people here were literally squeezed together led to a sharp deterioration in their health. Diseases such as dysentery, typhus, gangrene or scurvy spread rapidly.
According to preserved information in the camp, the prisoners slept in wooden huts, under simple tarpaulin shelters, and in the worst cases, in holes dug in the ground. People here had no protection against bad weather, they often got cold or rained on them. Clothes did not fit here, so people were forced to stay in improvised clothes or even completely naked. The only concern of most of the prisoners held here was their own survival, they had no energy left for anything else.
The entire camp was guarded by a prison guard made up of older men and young boys who could be missed at the front. Individual patrols sat in guard booths and were authorized to shoot anyone who tried to escape. In order to escape, the prisoner had to climb or otherwise scale a wooden fence inside the outer enclosure.
To make matters worse, some kind of gangs started to form inside the camp, terrorizing the other prisoners. One such group called itself the Andersonville Raiders and consisted of people who already had some criminal history behind them. Eventually, however, even camp commander Henry Wirz ran out of patience with these gangs, who had six of the main leaders of the Raiders hanged on July 11, 1864, due to growing unrest. However, after the war, Captain Wirz met exactly the same fate as these criminals. Although he defended himself by saying that he was only following orders, he was tried and convicted of war crimes and ended up on the gallows.
Today, Andersonville is a designated National Historic Site and has a memorial commemorating all American POWs in national history. On the site of the former Andersonville camp, numerous archaeological investigations are constantly underway.
