Today in History 02/19/17

Pioneer Memorial, dedicated to the Donner Party, in Truckee, California (© Rich Pedroncelli/AP )

(1847) The Donner Party is rescued

Surviving members of the ill-fated Donner Party, a group of pioneers snowbound in a Sierra Nevada mountain pass for almost four months, are finally located by a rescue party. Harrowing tales follow, including accounts of cannibalism.

The Donner Party was a group of American pioneers led by George Donner and James F. Reed who set out for California in a wagon train in May 1846. They were delayed by a series of mishaps and mistakes, and spent the winter of 1846–47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Some of the pioneers resorted to cannibalism to survive.

The journey west usually took between four and six months, but the Donner Party was slowed by following a new route called Hastings Cutoff, which crossed Utah’s Wasatch Mountains and Great Salt Lake Desert. The rugged terrain and difficulties encountered while traveling along the Humboldt River in present-day Nevada resulted in the loss of many cattle and wagons and splits within the group.

By the beginning of November 1846, the settlers had reached the Sierra Nevada where they became trapped by an early, heavy snowfall near Truckee (now Donner) Lake, high in the mountains. Their food supplies ran extremely low and, in mid-December, some of the group set out on foot to obtain help. Rescuers from California attempted to reach the settlers, but the first relief party did not arrive until the middle of February 1847, almost four months after the wagon train became trapped. Of the 87 members of the party, 48 survived to reach California, many of them having eaten the dead for survival.

Historians have described the episode as one of the most bizarre and spectacular tragedies in Californian history and western-US migration.

wiki/Donner_Party

The Kitamoto family prepares to be evacuated from Bainbridge Island, Wash., in 1942 (© AP)

(1942) FDR orders internment of Japanese Americans

Responding to paranoia after the Pearl Harbor attack, President Roosevelt signs an order that will lead to some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, including American citizens, to be forced into internment camps. The US will offer financial redress and official apologies in the 1980s and ’90s.

The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens. These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Date: Feb 19, 1942

wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans

Marines move in from the beach on Iwo Jima, Japan, on Feb 19, 1945 (© Joe Rosenthal/AP)

(1945) 30,000 US Marines land on Iwo Jima

Three Marine divisions make an amphibious landing on the beaches of a desolate, volcanic island 650 miles south of Tokyo. The ensuing battle with entrenched Japanese forces will be one of WWII’s bloodiest.

The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the goal of capturing the entire island, including the three Japanese-controlled airfields, to provide a staging area for attacks on the Japanese main islands. This five-week battle comprised some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the War in the Pacific of World War II.

Start date: Feb 19, 1945
End date: Mar 26, 1945

wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima

(1963) Betty Friedan’s ‘The Feminine Mystique’ published

Following a survey of her fellow Smith College alumni on the state of their lives, Betty Friedan releases her groundbreaking work on gender inequality. It will help launch what’s considered the second wave of feminism in the United States.

The Feminine Mystique is a 1963 book by Betty Friedan which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States. In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for The Feminine Mystique, conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to publish an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish her article.