Celebrations Today – June 30
Holidays and observances
- Christian feast day:
- Armed Forces Day (Guatemala)
- Asteroid Day (International observance)
- General Prayer Day (Central African Republic)
- Independence Day (Democratic Republic of the Congo), celebrates the independence of Democratic Republic of the Congo from Belgium in 1960.
- Navy Day (Israel)
- Philippine–Spanish Friendship Day (Philippines)
- Revolution Day (Sudan)
- Teachers’ Day (Dominican Republic)
Celebrations Today – USA: June 30
National Meteor Watch Day
Social Media Day
July National Days
National Leap Second Time Adjustment Day
National Meteor Day
National Organization for Women Day
Today in US History: June 30
Yosemite
…[T]he wonders of this region of sublimity, have been a source of inspiration to visitors, but none have been able to describe it to the satisfaction of those who followed after them.Lafayette Houghton Bunnell,
Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian War of 1851…,
copyright 1892, 246.
The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
Panorama of Yosemite Valley,
Yosemite National Park, California,
copyright 1915.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Valley Grant Act, Senate Bill 203, on June 30, 1864. The legislation gave California the Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Big Tree Grove “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation.”
Yosemite Valley from Artists’ Point, Calif.,
Yosemite National Park, California,
William Henry Jackson, photographer,
copyright 1898.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920
The newly appointed Yosemite Board of Commissioners confronted the dual task of preserving the magnificent landscape while providing for public recreation. With remarkable foresight, board member and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted recognized that these goals could conflict. In his 1865 Draft of Preliminary Report upon the Yosemite and Big Tree Grove, Olmsted warns that “the slight harm which the few hundred visitors of this year might do, if no care were taken to prevent it, would not be slight, if it should be repeated by millions.”
His concern about overuse of the park was ignored by the Board of Commissioners, and the Report never reached the state legislature.
As Olmsted predicted, the Yosemite Valley and the Big Tree Grove quickly became a “must see” vacation destination. In the 1870s, California tourist Mary Cone traveled by ferry, railroad, stagecoach, wagon, and horseback to reach the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. In Two Years In California, she describes eating her lunch “under the shadow and protection of one of these great kings of the forest.”
At about the same time, travel writer Caroline Churchill estimated that a week-to-ten-day trip to Yosemite cost $150 dollars including transportation. Despite the expense, Churchill notes:
It is a subject of much regret among the traveling public, that the question of the quality of food served to the unfortunate traveler cannot be made a matter of special legislation. A race of men must deteriorate when fed upon refuse food…I sincerely believe that this…is half the cause of there being so much intemperance in this State.Caroline Churchill,
Over the Purple Hills, or Sketches of Travel in California, Embracing All the Important Points Usually Visited by Tourists, 127-28.
“California as I Saw It”: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900
However, cost and discomfort were forgotten when:
… the great Yosemite Valley first breaks upon the vision, with a realizing sense of its grandeur. Here the rocks lift their towering heads so loftily to the sky, and the precipices are so fearfully deep, that mighty streams all turn to tears when rushing by, because of taking such a leap.Over the Purple Hills…, 133.
“California as I Saw It”: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900
Yet California proved unable to care adequately for these extraordinary lands, and by 1890, public sentiment had begun to demand the return of the park to the federal government. Naturalist John Muir was among Yosemite’s most eloquent and outspoken supporters. His articles and books describing the park’s natural wonders inspired public support for the establishment of Yosemite National Park in 1890 and its expansion through the recession of the California parklands in 1905-6. In the highly popular Our National Parks (1901), Muir devoted six chapters to Yosemite. This passage is typical of his reverence for the park:
Upper Yosemite Falls,
Yosemite National Park, California,
copyright 1908.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
Nowhere will you see the majestic operations of nature more clearly revealed beside the frailest, most gentle and peaceful things. Nearly all the park is a profound solitude. Yet it is full of charming company, full of God’s thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and eager enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons on life, mountain-building, eternal, invincible, unbreakable order; with sermons in stones, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful of humanity.John Muir,
Our National Parks, 78.
The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
Today, Yosemite National Park encompasses nearly 1,200 square miles of the central Sierra Nevada mountain range. With elevations as high as 13,000 feet above sea level, the park preserves alpine wilderness, groves of Giant Sequoias and the Yosemite Valley’s splendid cliffs, waterfalls, wildflowers, and impressive rock formations.
Learn more about Yosemite and the conservation movement in American Memory:
Mirror Lake,Yosemite,
Carleton E. Watkins, photographer,
circa 1860.
The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
Carleton E. Watkins was one of California’s early commercial photographers. In the 1860s, he created some of the first and most important photographs of the Yosemite region.
- Read Today in History features on milestones in the history of conservation in America. Topics include the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916, the 1908 Governors’ Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources, the creation of national parks in Washington and Arizona, and the first celebration of Earth Day.
- Chronology of Selected Events in the Development of the American Conservation Movement, c. 1850-1920, a special presentation in The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920, chronicles efforts to preserve the American landscape. Search the collection on Yosemite, Frederick Law Olmsted, John Muir, or National Park to locate photographs and significant documents, including the text of the Congressional debate on the Yosemite Valley Grant legislation.
- For access to texts of current environmental protection bills under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, go to THOMAS and browse major legislation classified by topics such as environmental protection or public lands.
- Search on the term Yosemite in the American Memory Photos and Prints to see more than two hundred images related to the park. See, for example, El Capitan, the majestic peak above Yosemite Valley, beautiful Bridal Veil Falls, or Curry Village, which opened in Yosemite National Park as a guest camp in 1899.
- Visit Yosemite National Park online via the National Park Service.
“Fallen Monarch,” September 15, 1911, Mariposa Big Tree Grove,
Yosemite National Park, California,
copyright 1915.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
Today in History – June 30-External Links
Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia