Atlanta News First

North America’s longest continually operating major league sports franchise is marking its 60th season in Atlanta, and its history here is full of some of its biggest milestones. 

On April 12, 1966, the Atlanta Braves’ first-ever game was played at Atlanta Stadium (as it was then known) against the Pittsburgh Pirates before more than 50,000 fans. 

The Braves’ history in Atlanta would see a Black baseball...

Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank answered several questions Thursday as the 83-year-old business and philanthropic titan held a news conference following a huge shakeup in the Falcons’ front office.

Early Sunday evening, Blank announced the firing of both Terry Fontenot and Raheem Morris from their positions of general manager and head coach, respective...

On Nov. 1, funding ran out for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, due to the government shutdown. 

Although a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to continue supporting SNAP, benefits remain in limbo. Georgia Democrats have called on the state to intervene, while Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced measures to assist those in need. 

For more coverage, visit atlantanewsfirst.com or dow...

In the late hours of Oct. 26, 1970, and into the early morning hours of Oct. 27, the most famous armed robbery in Atlanta history happened. And it was right after the city's most famous sports event in its history, up until that time: Muhammad Ali's return to professional boxing in a sanctioned fight at Atlanta Municipal Auditorium against Jerry Quarry. 

Jeff Keating is president of Doghouse Pictures, and hosted a podcast...

The return of the champion ended with Atlanta’s most famous armed robbery in history.
On Oct. 26, 1970, Muhammad Ali returned to the right for the first time since his three-year suspension from boxing for refusing to be inducted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

The fight was being held in Atlanta at the Municipal Auditorium - site of Friday night wrestling, all-night gospel singing and President William Howard T...

Over a long, distinguished career as an American sports journalist, Terence Moore likely interviewed Hank Aaron more than anyone. In fact, Moore said he was the last media professional to interview Aaron before his death on Jan. 22, 2021.

“Hank once said to me, ‘Of all the books that’ve been written about me, and of the documentaries produced about me, no one truly knows the real Hank Aaron,” Moore said, rec...

The two political candidates couldn’t have been more different. One man, descending from a family line of Baptist ministers and championing the values of temperance and chastity, promised law and order. The other belonged to a political party thriving on social disorder and looser interpretations of the laws regarding recreational pursuits.

Such a scenario could be easily imagined in any modern election, but it was exactly th...

Sixty years ago today, Mary Shotwell Little left her job at C&S Bank, where she worked as a secretary. That evening, she met a coworker for dinner and shopping at Lenox Square, and parted ways about 8 p.m.

She never showed up for work the next day, thus beginning one of metro Atlanta’s most infamous missing persons cases of the 20th century.

On Nov. 12, 2025, “The Vanishing: The 60-Year Unsolved Disappearance of Mar...

Early city officials purchased six acres in 1850 to be a public burial ground for a young-but-fast-growing town of Atlanta. 

Originally called Atlanta Graveyard or City Burial Place, this was the beginning of Oakland Cemetery. 

It was officially renamed in 1872. By then it had expanded to 48 acres, mainly due to pressures of the Civil War. In the late 19th century, families tended the plots of loved ones, creating an asso...

The product that has become the world's most iconic consumer brand was first served in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. Dr. John Stith Pemberton, a local pharmacist, produced the syrup for Coca-Cola, and carried a jug of the new product down the street to Jacobs’ Pharmacy, where it was sampled, pronounced “excellent” and placed on sale for five cents a glass as a soda fountain drink. Carbonated water was teamed w...

Its streets were traveled by some of the nation’s principled and most courageous. Its buildings were brick-laid by people who endured and persevered to leave behind a better city than they discovered.

Atlanta and the nation have taken a lot from Auburn Avenue. Now, the time may have finally arrived to give something back.

ATLVault talks with David Yoakley Mitchell, executive director of the Atlanta Preservation Center,...

Mary Phagan had only two things on her mind on April 26, 1913. First, it was Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia, and she was excited to show off her new dress. Second, she had to pick up her paycheck of $1.20 from Leo Frank, her boss at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, where she worked to help support her widowed mother who ran a local boarding house.

Phagan ate a late breakfast of cabbage and bread around 11:30 a.m., and t...

The Heart of Atlanta Supreme Court decision stands among the court’s most significant civil rights rulings.

In Atlanta, two arch segregationists vowed to flout the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the sweeping slate of civil rights reforms just signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Pickrick restaurant was run by Lester Maddox, who would eventually become governor of Georgia. The other, the Heart of Atlanta motel, was o...

Atlanta’s very first Super Bowl remains arguably the most exciting in NFL history.

The crime that happened only hours later remains the Super Bowl's most infamous.

Hours after the St. Louis Rams withstood a furious, late-game and last-second surge from the Tennessee Titans to win their first-ever NFL championship, two men were stabbed to death outside a Buckhead nightclub.

Ray Lewis - a Baltimore Ravens linebacker already wel...

On Sept. 5, 1955, two Atlanta businessmen - Joe Rogers and Tom Forkner - opened the very first Waffle House, located in DeKalb County's Avondale Estates community. Rogers started in the restaurant business as a short-order cook in 1947  at the Toddle House in Connecticut.

By 1949, he was a regional manager, then moved to Atlanta. He met Forkner while buying a house from him in Avondale Estates.

Today, Waffle House has more tha...