Happy Birthday, Oakland!

Today marks the 164th anniversary of Oakland being incorporated as a town. This was something of a surprise to the residents of what had been the village of Contra Costa, but that was never the kind of thing to slow down Horace Carpentier. He went on to become Oakland's first mayor, winning by more votes than there were voters.

In honor of Oakland's birthday, I'm releasing a new feature here on Our Oakland, "Today in Oakland history...". It appears in the upper right, and will show you a list of events of significance from that day in Oakland history.


In most cases the entries are links to the Oakland Wiki, where you can find out more about the event or person in question. I haven't found events for every day yet, but it's a good start.