The brown thrasher, a big, foxy red songbird with a repertoire of more than 1,000 song types, became Georgia’s state bird in 1935 by a proclamation of the governor. In 1970, ...

The 1956 flag: The Georgia state flag was changed Feb. 13, 1956, incorporating a Confederate battle emblem into the design, as a response to the Supreme Court rulings on desegregating schools.

Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, right, and Cecil Alexander, left, the designer of the new Georgia state flag, pose with the banner in the governors office at the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2001.