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:
“What you dont understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (18901960)
“Boys forget what their country means by just reading the land of the free in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Libertys too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (19021975)
“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”
—Oscar Wilde (18541900)