August 19 Holidays

National Aviation Day was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 to mark August 19, 1871, the birthday of Orville Wright — who, with his brother Wilbur, made the first powered airplane flight on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. International Orangutan Day was established to raise awareness for the critically endangered orangutan — the only great ape native to Asia, found in the forests of Borneo and Sumatra, whose population has declined by more than 80 percent in the last 75 years due to deforestation and the palm oil industry. Afghanistan Independence Day marks August 19, 1919, when the Treaty of Rawalpindi granted Afghanistan full independence from British control over its foreign affairs — ending what Afghans call the Third Anglo-Afghan War. National Potato Day celebrates the Andean tuber that the Spanish brought to Europe in the 1570s — a crop that fed the Irish famine’s survivors and the Industrial Revolution’s factory workers and now constitutes the third most consumed food crop on Earth. A biplane, an orangutan, a 1919 treaty, and a very adaptable tuber.