Christopher Quinn

The swashbuckling Atlanta entrepreneur Ted Turner told TV interviewer Charlie Rose in 2004, “I had one of the most incredible runs in human history.” But in quieter moments, he wondered if he had accomplished enough. Turner improbably transformed his father’s Georgia billboard advertising company into an Atlanta-based global media empire and redefined how the planet gets news and entertainment.

CNN medical journalist Sanjay Gupta asked Atlanta’s Dr. William (Bill) H. Foege during a 2018 awards ceremony what he thought about some people crediting him with saving more lives than anyone in history. “I ignore it,” Foege replied. “Nothing is done by an individual. Everything is done by coalitions.” It was a typical answer from Foege, who lived much of his life in Atlanta, to push credit to others for saving millions of lives globally through disease control and elimination.

Eighty years ago, five Georgians were among the 429 killed when the USS Oklahoma battleship was torpedoed multiple times in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Their bodies and more than 350 others lay in military graves, unable to be identified for decades. Then, starting six years ago, modern technology sent four of the men home to families. But the last Georgian, Walter B. Manning, won’t be coming home, at least for now.