Celebrations Today – August 1
Holidays and observances
- Armed Forces Day (Lebanon)
- Armed Forces Day (China) or Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Liberation Army (People’s Republic of China)
- Azerbaijani Language and Alphabet Day (Azerbaijan)
- Celebration of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 which ended the slavery in the British Empire, generally celebrated as a part of Carnival, as the Caribbean Carnival takes place at this time (British West Indies):
- Earliest day on which Caribana celebration can fall, celebrated on the first Weekend of August. (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
- Earliest day on which Emancipation Day can fall, celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Anguilla, the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands)
- Emancipation Day (Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago)
- Christian feast day:
- Abgar V of Edessa (Syrian Church)
- Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori
- Æthelwold of Winchester
- Bernard Võ Văn Duệ (one of Vietnamese Martyrs)
- Blessed Gerhard Hirschfelder
- Eusebius of Vercelli
- Exuperius of Bayeux
- Faith, Hope, and Charity
- Felix of Girona
- Joseph of Arimathea (US Episcopal Church)
- Peter Apostle in Chains
- Procession of the Cross and the beginning of Dormition Fast (Eastern Orthodoxy)
- The Holy Maccabees
- August 1 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Earliest day on which August Bank Holiday (Ireland) can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August.
- Earliest day on which Civic Holiday can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Canada)
- Earliest day on which Commerce Day, or Frídagur verslunarmanna, can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Iceland)
- Earliest day on which Farmers’ Day can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Zambia)
- Earliest day on which International Beer Day can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Friday of August.
- Earliest day on which International Friendship Day can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Sunday of August.
- Earliest day on which Kadooment Day can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August (Barbados)
- Earliest day on which Labor Day (Samoa) can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August (Samoa)
- Feast of Kamál (Perfection); First day of the eighth month of the Bahá’í calendar. (Bahá’í Faith) (This only occurs on this date if Bahá’í Naw-Rúz falls on March 21)
- Minden Day (United Kingdom)
- National Day, celebrates the independence of Benin from France in 1960.
- National Day, commemorates Switzerland becoming a single unit in 1291.
- Official Birthday and Coronation Day of the King of Tonga (Tonga)
- Parents’ Day (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
- Statehood Day (Colorado)
- The beginning of autumn observances in the Northern hemisphere and spring observances in the Southern hemisphere (Neopagan Wheel of the Year):
- The first day of Carnaval del Pueblo (Burgess Park, London, England)
- Victory Day (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam)
- World Scout Scarf Day
- Yorkshire Day (Yorkshire, England)
Celebrations Today – USA: August 1
National Raspberry Cream Pie Day
National Girlfriends Day
National Minority Donor Awareness Day
Respect for Parents Day
National Night Out Day – First Tuesday in August
National Homemade Pie Day
National Lammas
National Lughnasadh
National Play Ball Day
National Rounds Resounding Day
National Spiderman Day
National Woman Astronomers Day
World Wide Web Day
National Yorkshire Day
Today in US History: August 1
Colorado
After its first bid for statehood was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, Colorado entered the Union on August 1, 1876, the year the United States celebrated its centennial. Thus, the thirty-eighth state is known as the Centennial State.
Ute Indian Camp, Garden of the Gods, Shan Kive,
Colorado, 1913.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
Among the early inhabitants of the land encompassed by Colorado were the Anasazi cliff dwellers. They were forced by drought and other factors to abandon their Mesa Verde homes in the late 1200s. At the time of European exploration and settlement Colorado’s population was made up of Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. Their territory was explored by the Spanish who, after Napoleon’s conquest of Spain, turned over its title to the French.
The United States acquired the eastern part of Colorado in 1803 through the Louisiana Purchase and the western portion in 1848 through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In 1850, the federal government also purchased a Texas claim in Colorado. This combined property eventually became the Colorado Territory in 1861.
Rocks and stream along the Million Dollar Highway,
Ouray County, Colorado,
Russell Lee, photographer,
October, 1940.
America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945
The 1858 discovery of gold caused a population influx in Colorado, just as it had in California in 1849. After Horace Greeley notified readers of the New-York Tribune of this news, as many as 5,000 miners per week poured into the territory. By 1900 gold production had reached over $20,000,000 annually at Cripple Creek, one of the world’s richest gold camps.
Colorado proved rich in other minerals as well, and smelting ores to separate gold and other valuable metals became commercially profitable. As late as the 1940s, mountain streams in Ouray County, Colorado, ran yellow because of the tailings from the gold mills, as seen in this photo by Farm Security Administration photographer Russell Lee.
Railroad lines with names such as the Denver, Cripple Creek and Southwestern Railroad brought even more travelers and settlers to Colorado. Railroad traveler Sue A. Pike Sanders recorded the following impressions in her journal of an overnight stay in Denver in the summer of 1886:
Denver is a beautiful city of some 75,000 inhabitants, built mostly of stone and brick. It contains the usual amount of fine buildings. One in particular we are lead to observe, and that, Tabor’s Opera House, the largest in the world, excepting one in Paris, France. This building cost $850,000. The County Court House occupies an entire block, with buildings and ground. There are two large smelting works here…Sue A. Sanders, A Journey to, on and from the “Golden Shore,”, 1887.
“California as I Saw It”: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900
Mine American Memory to find a mother lode of information on Colorado:
- Panoramic Maps includes early maps of a number of Colorado cities. Search on Colorado, then follow the instructions presented with each map. Zoom in on an area of the map to see mining camps, smelters, railroads, hotels, houses, horse-drawn carriages, and much more in fine and accurate detail.
Rocky Mountain National Park,
Estes Park, Colorado.
American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920: a Study Collection from the Harvard Graduate School of Design - Colorado is also known for the richness of its agricultural production, and its physical diversity and beauty. In 1891, President Benjamin Harrison set aside the White River Plateau Timber Land Reserve as the first national forest reserve in Colorado. For additional documents and images related to Colorado’s natural resources and their conservation, search on Colorado in The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920. Read, for example, the establishment of Rocky Mountain National Park.
- History of the American West: 1860-1920 contains over 30,000 photographs which illustrate Colorado towns and landscape, document mining in the West, and show the lives of Native Americans from more than forty tribes. Search on the terms Arapaho, Cheyenne, or Ute to see images of these tribal peoples and landscapes which bear their names.
- Learn how travel and settlement paralleled the growth and development of the U.S. railroad system in Railroad Maps, 1825-1900. Browse the collection by geographic location, and select a state, such as Colorado, to view available maps.
- See two films set in Colorado in Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies. View Cripple Creek Bar-Room Scene and Terrible Teddy, the Grizzly King.
- Listen to sound recordings collected from Spanish-speaking residents of Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. Hispano Music & Culture from the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection contains, for example, Marcha de Napoleón (Napoleon’s March) played by residents of Antonito and Romeo, Colorado.
- Search across American Memory’s photo and print collections on the term Colorado to see a wide range of historical images of the thirty-eighth state. See, for example, Lillies, Rose Album, and Looking for Lydia — quilts judged the Colorado State Winners of the All-American Quilt Contest in 1992, 1994, and 1996 respectively.
- Search on Colorado in Votes for Women: Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921 to find books and pamphlets related to the women’s suffrage movement in Colorado between 1868 and 1898.
- Search on Colorado in the“California as I Saw It”: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900 collection to find first-person narratives about Colorado.
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Today in History – August 1-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