In 1848 the Oregon Territory was organized by a vote of the US Congress. In 1893 France became the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration. In 1933 loggers caused a forest fire in the Coast Range of Oregon which would later become known as the first forest fire of the Tillamook Burn, which would destroy 240,000 acres of forest land. I remember growing up in the 60s still seeing the remains of the damage while riding with my family to visit my grandparents who lived near Tillamook.
Also in 1935 during my dad’s high school days, President FDR signed the Social Security Act, which benefitted both my Dad and me.
Notables born on this date include Anglo-Irish astronomer and author Margaret Lindsay Huggins (1848), Canadian-American physicist and discoverer of the U-235 isotope, which led to the atomic bomb, Arthur Jeffrey Dempster (1886), Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver (19300 and singer-songwriter and guitarist David Crosby (1941) part of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, who recently passed away earlier this year.
This was also the birthdate for comedian and actor Steve Martin (1945) as well as actress Halle Berry (1966) and Far Side cartoonist Greg Larson (1950) and movie soundtrack composer and conductor James Horner (1953) who sadly passed away in 2015.
Those who left us on this date include two First Ladies – Margaret Taylor (1852) wife of Zachary Taylor, and Sarah Childress Polk (1891) wife of James K Polk. We lost Frederic Joliot-Curie (1958) who with his wife Irene were the second couple to be awarded joint Nobel Prizes in Chemistry – her parents Marie and Pierre Curie also won joint Nobel Prizes.
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