History
The BGN was established in 1890 as the "Board on Geographical Names" and has undergone several name changes. In 1934, it was transferred to the Department of the Interior. The 1969 BGN publication Decisions on Geographic Names in the United States stated the agency's chief purpose as:
" submitted for decisions to the Board on Geographical names by individuals, private organizations, or government agencies. It is the Board’s responsibility to render formal decisions on new names, proposed changes in names, and names which are in conflict. define the spellings and applications of the names for use on maps and other publications of Federal agencies"
Read more about this topic: United States Board On Geographic Names
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)