August 2015 BAH Short List
US Cavalry takes charge of Yellowstone Park protecting it for two generations from commercialization.
In August 1886, after the downfall of Superintendent Carpenter from his criminal attempt to profit off of park lands, Sheridan ordered a company of the First Cavalry to take charge of the park. They had the means to enforce the rules and regulations of the park, and they ably administered Yellowstone for the next thirty-two years.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Yellowstone
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expeditions_and_the_protection_of_Yellowstone_(1869%E2%80%931890)
Martin Luther King Jr. gave the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963.
“I Have a Dream” is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28, 1963, in which he calls for an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, the speech was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.[1] (from wikipedia)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream
Other calendars
- Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 08 August
- Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 08
- United Nations Observations UN Proclamations & Observances UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 08 August
Full BAH Research
August
| Name & Event | Reason important to Secular Humanism | Calendar Month |
| Sheridan protecting Yellowstone. | Yellowstone[edit] The protection of the Yellowstone area was Sheridan’s personal crusade. He authorized Lieutenant Gustavus Doane to escort the Washburn Expedition in 1870 and for Captain John W. Barlow to escort the Hayden Expedition in 1871. Barlow named Mount Sheridan, a peak overlooking Heart Lake in Yellowstone, for the general in 1871.[50] As early as 1875, Sheridan promoted military control of the area to prevent the destruction of natural formations and wildlife.[51] In 1882, the Department of the Interior granted rights to the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company to develop 4,000 acres (1620 hectares) in the park. Their plan was to build a railroad into the park and sell the land to developers. Sheridan personally organized opposition to the plan and lobbied Congress for protection of the park; including expansion, military control, reducing the development to 10 acres (4 hectares), and prohibiting leases near park attractions. In addition, he arranged an expedition to the park for President Chester A. Arthur and other influential men.[52] His lobbying soon paid off. A rider was added to the Sundry Civil Bill of 1883, giving Sheridan and his supporters almost everything for which they had asked. In 1886, after a string of ineffectual and sometimes criminal superintendents, Sheridan ordered the 1st U.S. Cavalry into the park. The military operated the park until the National Park Service took it over in 1916.[51] President Ulysses S. Grant, on March 1, 1872, signed into law a bill making an area mostly in the Northwest corner of Wyoming Territory larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined into this nation’s first national park. Sheridan is mentioned favorably in The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, Episode I, for his work saving Yellowstone National Park:[53] Grinnell’s fight against the railroad interests was soon joined by an unlikely ally—General Philip Sheridan, a cavalry hero of the Civil War and celebrated Indian fighter, who was now commander of the U.S. Army for much of the West. Sheridan even suggested that Yellowstone should be expanded to provide greater protection for the elk and buffalo. The idea was immediately opposed by Western politicians who believed that Yellowstone was already too big. In Washington, Grinnell, Sheridan and Missouri Senator George Vest took on the railroad lobby directly, calling for an investigation into the park contracts, proposing the expansion of Yellowstone, and trying to write park regulations concerning hunting into law. While the bill to expand Yellowstone failed, Congress did appropriate $40,000 for its maintenance; however, funds to maintain the park were stripped away in August 1886. It seemed Yellowstone would have to fend for itself. Sheridan’s headstone at Arlington National Cemetery. The inscription faces Washington, D.C. Coming to the rescue, Sheridan dispatched Troop M of the First United States Cavalry to take control of Yellowstone. —Ken Burns, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea | August, Cavalry take over park management Sheridan’s plan generally succeeded, and Yellowstone became a national park in fact. After one failed attempt to pass Sheridan’s plan, Vest pushed the bill through as a rider on the Sundry Civil Appropriations Bill signed March 3, 1883 64 (see Sundry Civil Bill for 1883 ). The final version of the act added no more land to Yellowstone, but it called for everything else that Sheridan wanted. Furthermore, Chester A. Arthur became the first President to visit the park in the summer of 1883. Arthur and his party of dignitaries–cabinet members, senators, governors, and others–left Yellowstone impressed enough that they did not stand in the way of the execution of the law. 65 In August 1886, after the downfall of Superintendent Carpenter from his criminal attempt to profit off of park lands, Sheridan ordered a company of the First Cavalry to take charge of the park. They had the means to enforce the rules and regulations of the park, and they ably administered Yellowstone for the next thirty-two years. 66 Sheridan’s ironic mission to save Yellowstone’s wildlife and protect it from the dominating interests of private enterprise succeeded. |
| Coast Guard Day | Coast Guard Day (Established in 1790) | August 4, 1790 |
| | Thomas Edison received a patent for the mimeograph machine in 1876. | August 8, 1876 |
| | Transcontinental Railroad completed, 1869. | August 15, 1869 |
| Mosquito Day | | August 20 |
| | National Park Service Established 1916. | 25 August 1916 |
| American Civil Rights Movement | Dream DayMartin Luther King Jr. gave the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963. | 28 August, 1963 |
| | Thurgood Marshall took a seat on the Supreme Court, 1967. | 30 August 1967 |