Imagine a world where the South won the Civil War, where slavery continued into the 20th century, and the Nazis emerged victorious from World War II.

That's the kind of world Dr. Jamil S. Zainaldin said probably would have resulted if not for a few key events in Georgia history.

"I think that we who live in Georgia do not really appreciate the extent of how significant Georgia is to American history and even to world history," Zainaldin told members of the Newnan Carnegie Library Foundation at their Wednesday lunch meeting at the Carnegie building.

Georgia has "influenced and changed the world," he said. He shared with the board members five events in Georgia history that he said are especially significant.

"Number one is the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney," he said. That event in 1793 changed not just the future plantation period history of the South, but also led to the industrialization of the North, he said....