New York Sun

Today in History 08/25 (National Park Service)

Looking east up Yosemite Valley from Artist Point, Yosemite National Park, Calif. (© Carleton E. Watkins/Getty Images)(1916) US creates an agency for national parks
President Woodrow Wilson signs the National Park Service Organic Act ‘to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wild life therein.’ The National Park Service will grow to oversee more than 400 areas, including national parks, other land areas, and historic structures.
The National Park Service is an agency of the United States federal government that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. It was created on August 25, 1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior. The NPS is charged with a dual role of preserving the ecological and historical integrity of the places entrusted to its management, while also making them available and accessible for public use and enjoyment.
Website: www.nps.gov
Customer service: +1 4068887800
Founded: Aug 25, 1916
Founders: Woodrow Wilson · Theodore Roosevelt · Horace M. Albright · Stephen Mather
Parent organization: United States Department of the Interior
Subsidiaries: National Register of Historic Places · United States Park Police
Agency executive: Mike Reynolds, Acting Director

The map shows the location of all the National Parks and their principal railroad connections as of 1916
In 1916, a portfolio of nine major parks was published to generate interest. Printed on each brochure was a map showing the parks and principal railroad connections.
wiki/National_Park_Service
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(1916) US creates an agency for national parks.
Also on this day,

1835 | The New York Sun publishes a story of utter lunacy
‘Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made,’ reads the New York Sun’s headline, claiming the discovery, via an enormous telescope, of a surreal civilization on the moon. Reports of man-bats, unicorns, and goats living in a verdant paradise are unfortunately later proven to be a hoax.
1939 | Dorothy Gale goes somewhere over the rainbow in ‘Wizard of Oz’
L. Frank Baum’s children’s story comes to the silver screen as MGM’s big-budget film version of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ opens in theaters across America. A box-office disappointment, the tale of Dorothy’s trip from Kansas to the Emerald City will grow in popularity through re-releases and TV broadcasts.
1945 | Chinese communists kill US intelligence officer John Birch
US missionary and intelligence officer John Birch is shot near Xi’an while traveling to meet with Allied POWs 10 days after Japan’s WWII surrender. Considered the first fatality of the Cold War, he will inspire American conservatives 13 years later to establish the John Birch Society in his honor.
1950 | A tennis trailblazer breaks a racial barrier
Tennis player Althea Gibson celebrates her 23rd birthday on the same day she makes history as the first African American to play in the US National Championship. A record crowd watches as she competes in Forest Hills, New York, in the tournament that will be later called the US Open.

Today in History 08/25/17

Drawing of a man-bat from an edition of the Moon series (Public domain)(1835) The New York Sun publishes a story of utter lunacy
'Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made,' reads the New York Sun's headline, claiming the discovery, via an enormous telescope, of a surreal civilization on the moon. Reports of man-bats, unicorns, and goats living in a verdant paradise are unfortunately later proven to be a hoax.

The "Great Moon Hoax" refers to a series of six articles that were published in The Sun, a New York newspaper, beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and even civilization on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, one of the best-known contemporary astronomers of that time.

The story was advertised on August 21, 1835, as an upcoming feature allegedly reprinted from The Edinburgh Courant. The first in a series of six was published four days later on August 25.


Great-Moon-Hoax-1835-New-York-Sun-lithograph
A lithograph of the hoax's "ruby amphitheater", as printed in The Sun

wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax
Painting of John Birch (Courtesy of The John Birch Society)(1945) Chinese communists kill a US intelligence officer
US missionary and intelligence officer John Birch is shot near Xi'an while traveling to meet with Allied POWs 10 days after Japan's WWII surrender. Considered the first fatality of the Cold War, he will inspire American conservatives 13 years later to establish the John Birch Society in his honor.
John Morrison Birch was an American Baptist minister, missionary, and United States Army Air Forces captain who was a U.S. military intelligence officer in China during World War II. Birch was killed in a confrontation with Chinese Communist soldiers a few days after the war ended. He was posthumously awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal.
Born: May 28, 1918 · Landour, India
Died: Aug 25, 1945 · Xi'an, China
Education: Mercer University
Highlights
  • 1939: He graduated from Gore High School in Chattooga County, followed by Georgia Baptist–affiliated Mercer University in 1939 magna cum laude.

  • 1940: Arriving in Shanghai which was in Japanese occupied territory in July 1940, he began an intensive study of Mandarin Chinese.

  • 1941: In October 1941, he left Hangzhou for Shangrao in "Free China."

  • 1942: In April 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and his crew bailed out in China after the Tokyo raid.

  • 1943: Birch served with the China Air Task Force, which became the Fourteenth Air Force on 5 March 1943, and was later seconded to the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

  • 1945: U.S. Senator William F. Knowland attempted unsuccessfully to obtain posthumous awards for Birch which included the Distinguished Service Cross, but these were not approved on the grounds that the United States was not at war with the Communist Chinese in 1945.

wiki/John_Birch_(missionary)
Althea Gibson during a tennis match in 1958 (© AP)(1950) A tennis trailblazer breaks a racial barrier
Tennis player Althea Gibson celebrates her 23rd birthday on the same day she makes history as the first African American to play in the US National Championship. A record crowd watches as she competes in Forest Hills, New York, in the tournament that will be later called the US Open.
Althea Gibson was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and the first black athlete to cross the color line of international tennis. In 1956, she became the first person of color to win a Grand Slam title. The following year she won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals, then won both again in 1958, and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years. In all, she won 11 Grand Slam tournaments, including six doubles titles, and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. "She is one of the greatest players who ever lived," said Robert Ryland, a tennis contemporary and former coach of Venus and Serena Williams. "Martina couldn't touch her. I think she'd beat the Williams sisters." In the early 1960s she also became the first black player to compete on the women's professional golf tour.
Lived: Aug 25, 1927 - Sep 28, 2003 (age 76)
Height: 5' 11" (1.80 m)
Grand Slam titles (singles): 6
Spouse: Sydney Llewellyn (m. 1983 - 1988) · Will Darben (m. 1965 - 1976)
Movies: The Horse Soldiers
Education: Florida A&M University
Highlights
  • 1941: In 1941 she entered—and won—her first tournament, the American Tennis Association (ATA) New York State Championship.

  • 1957: On opening night of the 2007 U.S. Open, the 50th anniversary of her first victory at its predecessor, the U.S. Championships, in 1957, Gibson was inducted into the US Open Court of Champions.

  • 1959: In 1959 she signed to play a series of exhibition matches against Karol Fageros before Harlem Globetrotter basketball games.

  • 1960: In 1960 her first memoir, I Always Wanted to Be Somebody, written with sportswriter Ed Fitzgerald, was published.

  • 1980: In 1980 Gibson became one of the first six inductees into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame, placing her on par with such pioneers as Amelia Earhart, Wilma Rudolph, Gertrude Ederle, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, and Patty Berg.

  • 1983: In 1983 she married Sydney Llewellyn, her coach during her peak tennis years.

wiki/Althea_Gibson
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