Short answers, pulled from the story.
East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. It comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee and consists of 33 counties.
Archaeological excavations at the Icehouse Bottom site near Vonore revealed that Native Americans were living in East Tennessee on at least a semi-annual basis as early as 7,500 B.C.
By the early 18th century, most Natives in Tennessee had disappeared, likely wiped out by diseases introduced by the Spaniards during expeditions led by Hernando de Soto, Tristan de Luna, and Juan Pardo in the 16th century.
In 1838 and 1839, U.S. troops forcibly removed nearly 17,000 Cherokees and about 2,000 Black people the Cherokees enslaved from their homes in southeastern Tennessee. An estimated 4,000 died along the way.
When Tennessee voted on a referendum calling for secession in February 1861, more than 80% of East Tennesseans voted against it.
Starting in 1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built what is now the city of Oak Ridge to become the site of the world's first successful uranium enrichment operations used to construct the world's first atomic bombs.