Celebrations Today – August 14

Holidays and observances

Christian feast day:
Anniversary Day (Tristan da Cunha)
Commemoration of Wadi al-Dahab (Morocco)
Engineer’s Day (Dominican Republic)
Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland (Abkhazia) (state is not fully recognized)
Independence Day, celebrates the day when Pakistan was declared a sovereign nation following the end of the British Raj in 1947.
Pramuka Day (Indonesia)

Celebrations Today – USA: August 14

National Spirit of ’45 Day
National V-J Day
National Creamsicle Day
National Color Book Day
National Financial Awareness Day
National Navajo Code Talkers Day
National Wiffle Ball Day

Today in US History: August 14

Oregon Territory

Crater Lake, Oregon,
copyright 1913.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991

On August 14, 1848, Congress created the Oregon Territory, an area encompassing present-day Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and parts of western Montana and Wyoming. Peter Burnett, a Missouri lawyer who joined an expedition to the Oregon Territory in 1843, hoped to make enough money there to repay his accumulated debt. Forty years later, he recalled:

During the winter of 1842-’43, the Congressional report of Senator Appleton in reference to Oregon fell into my hands…I saw that a great American community would grow up, in the space of a few years, upon the shores of the distant Pacific; and I felt an ardent desire to aid in this most important enterprise.

Peter H. Burnett,
Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer,
1880.
“California as I Saw It”: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900

The journey, the practical Burnett noted, would also resolve the condition of his wife who had been ill throughout the past winter. He wryly remarked that “her physician said the trip would either kill or cure her.”

A Man and Woman With a Covered Wagon, Prospect, Oregon,
George E. Nichols, photographer,
1913.
American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936: Images from the University of Chicago Library

The Oregon Territory quickly became a magnet for diverse groups of immigrants and settlers. The deep wagon wheel ruts created by the massive migration can still be seen, marking the Oregon Trail.

Mrs. J. R. Bean recalled the unsettled atmosphere of the early days in Oregon in her recollection of a social occasion suddenly interrupted by gunshots:

I was sitting with my mother on the stage or rostrum of the hall where the party was, when suddenly a bullet whizzed over our heads. A man there stole somebody else’s girl…I don’t think he was killed, but his assailant, if I recall correctly, was imprisoned for life.
“Overland Trail Lore and Early Life,”
Interview with Mrs. J. R. Bean,
Oswego, Oregon,
Sara B. Wrenn, interviewer,
January 31, 1939.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940

On March 2, 1853, the Washington Territory was created out of the northern section of the Oregon Territory. Oregon eventually achieved statehood in 1859; Washington was admitted into the Union in 1889.

Horse Breeding Ranch,
Grant County, Oregon,
Russell Lee, photographer,
July 1942.
America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945