Good morning.

Sunday will be a gradually sunnier day, with a high of twenty-nine, and northwest winds 10 to 15 mph. The moon’s now a waning crescent, and tomorrow will be one minute longer.

On this day in 1838, Morse demonstrates the telegraph:

…Samuel Morse’s telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph, a device which used electric impulses to transmit encoded messages over a wire, would eventually revolutionize long-distance communication, reaching the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born April 27, 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University, where he was interested in art, as well as electricity, still in its infancy at the time. After college, Morse became a painter. In 1832, while sailing home from Europe, he heard about the newly discovered electromagnet and came up with an idea for an electric telegraph. He had no idea that other inventors were already at work on the concept.

Morse spent the next several years developing a prototype and took on two partners, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, to help him. In 1838, he demonstrated his invention using Morse code, in which dots and dashes represented letters and numbers. In 1843, Morse finally convinced a skeptical Congress to fund the construction of the first telegraph line in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram over the line, with the message: “What hath God wrought!”

Over the next few years, private companies, using Morse’s patent, set up telegraph lines around the Northeast. In 1851, the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company was founded; it would later change its name to Western Union. In 1861, Western Union finished the first transcontinental line across the United States. Five years later, the first successful permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean was constructed and by the end of the century telegraph systems were in place in Africa, Asia and Australia.

Because telegraph companies typically charged by the word, telegrams became known for their succinct prose–whether they contained happy or sad news. The word “stop,” which was free, was used in place of a period, for which there was a charge. In 1933, Western Union introduced singing telegrams. During World War II, Americans came to dread the sight of Western Union couriers because the military used telegrams to inform families about soldiers’ deaths.

Over the course of the 20th century, telegraph messages were largely replaced by cheap long-distance phone service, faxes and email. Western Union delivered its final telegram in January 2006.

Samuel Morse died wealthy and famous in New York City on April 2, 1872, at age 80.

On 1.6.1921, some of Janesville women take a stand against entertainment:

1921 – Janesville Women Abhor Salacious Entertainment
On this date the Janesville Federation of Women decided to “censor” movies and vaudeville in the city. Members of this organization praised and promoted what they considered “better offerings.” They were zealously critical towards those of a “salacious” nature. No follow-up ever determined whether the women were successful in their quest or if the increased publicity for “salacious” shows backfired. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Google-a-Day has a sports and film question: “In what year did the manager and team depicted in the blockbuster film “Moneyball” finally win their first playoff series?”

Good morning.

Today brings a day of increasing clouds, and a high of thirty-three. We’ll have 9h 10m of sunlight, 10h 14m of daylight, and tomorrow will be one minute shorter.

The Golden Gate bridge’s construction began on 1.5.33:

On this day in 1933, construction starts on what will become one of America’s most famous landmarks: the Golden Gate Bridge. When completed in 1937, the Golden Gate has a 4,200-foot-long suspension span, making it the world’s longest suspension bridge. [Adams: it’s one of the longest, but neither the longest in North America nor the world.  Here’s a list of the world’s longest suspension bridges.]  Since opening to the public in May 1937, almost 2 billion vehicles have crossed the bridge, in both the north- and southbound directions.

The bridge was named not for its distinctive orange color (which provides extra visibility to passing ships in San Francisco‘s famous fog), but for the Golden Gate Strait, where the San Francisco Bay opens into the Pacific Ocean. The bridge spans the strait and connects the northern part of the city of San Francisco to Marin County, California.

Prior to the bridge’s construction, the only way to travel between these two areas was by ferry boat.

On this day in 1855, a famous inventor is born:

1855 – King Camp Gillette Born
On this date King Camp Gillette was born in Fond du Lac. He worked for many years as a traveling salesman. After much experimentation, he developed a disposable steel blade and razor. He established the Gillette Safety Razor Company in 1901. Sales for his product skyrocketed. Gillette remained president of his company until 1931 and was a director until his death the following year. [Source: Lemelson-MIT Program]

From Google-a-Day, a question about a play’s name: “What is the name of the play in which Tom’s older sister withdraws into a fantasy life she has created amid her collection of glass animal figurines?”

Good morning.

It’s a sunny Friday for the Whippet City, with a high of 29.  We’ll have west winds of 10 to 15 mph, 9h 9m of sunlight, 10h 13m of daylight, and tomorrow will be one minute longer.

On 1.4.1785, author Jacob Grimm is born:

On this day, the older of the two Grimm brothers, Jacob, is born in Hanau, Germany. His brother Wilhelm is born the following year.

As young men, the two brothers assisted some friends with research for an important collection of folk lyrics. One of the authors, impressed by the brothers’ work, suggested they publish some of the oral folktales they’d collected. The collection appeared as Children’s and Household Tales, later known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, in several volumes between 1812 and 1822.

On this day in 1923, Milton College takes a stand against dancing:

1923 – Student Dancing Banned
On this date Milton College president A.E. Whitford banned dancing by students in off-campus, semi-public places such as confectionery stores. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

The Roaring Twenties weren’t roaring everywhere.

Google-a-Day asks a question about auto racing: “The race car driver nicknamed Neiblemeister – master of the mist, was married to what famous female aviator?”

Good morning.

Thursday brings a high of twenty-four, with west winds at 5 to 10 mph.

On this day in 1924, a notable archaeological milestone:

Two years after British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen near Luxor, Egypt, they uncover the greatest treasure of the tomb–a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin that holds the mummy of Tutankhamen.

When Carter first arrived in Egypt in 1891, most of the ancient Egyptian tombs had been discovered, although the little-known Pharaoh Tutankhamen, who had died when he was a teen, was still unaccounted for. After World War I, Carter began an intensive search for “King Tut’s Tomb,” finally finding steps to the burial room hidden in the debris near the entrance of the nearby tomb of King Ramses VI in the Valley of the Kings. On November 26, 1922, Carter and fellow archaeologist Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb, finding it miraculously intact.

Thus began a monumental excavation process in which Carter carefully explored the four-room tomb over four years, uncovering an incredible collection of several thousand objects. The most splendid architectural find was a stone sarcophagus containing three coffins nested within each other. Inside the final coffin, made out of solid gold, was the mummy of the boy-king Tutankhamen, preserved for more than 3,000 years.

On 1.3.1942, a then-Janesville company began its part for the war effort:

On this date Parker Pen in Janesville was awarded a contract for 35 million parts for anti-aircraft shell fuses. The contract was a subcontract from Borg Corporation in Delavan. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Google-a-Day asks about Canadian history: “Who opened the 23rd Canadian Parliament, the first monarch of Canada to open a parliamentary session?”

Good morning.

Wednesday brings a day of gradual clearing, a high of twenty-one, and a wind chill between zero and ten. There will be 9h 7m of sunlight, 10h 11m of daylight, with a waning gibbous moon.

On this day in 1905, the Russian surrender to the Japanese at Port Arthur was the first of a string of Japanese victories in the war between those two nations:

During the Russo-Japanese War, Port Arthur, the Russian naval base in China, falls to Japanese naval forces under Admiral Heihachiro Togo. It was the first in a series of defeats that by June turned the tide of the imperial conflict irrevocably against Russia.

In February 1904, following a Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launched a surprise naval attack on Port Arthur, decimating the Russian fleet. In the subsequent fighting, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians, who underestimated the military potential of its non-Western opponent.

In January 1905, the strategic naval base of Port Arthur fell to the Japanese; in March, Russian troops were defeated at Shenyang, China, by Japanese Field Marshal Iwao Oyama; and in May, the Russian Baltic fleet under Admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski was destroyed by Admiral Togo’s fleet near the Tsushima Islands. These three crucial defeats convinced Russia that further resistance against Japan’s imperial designs on East Asia was hopeless, and in August 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt mediated a peace treaty at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Japan emerged from the conflict as the first modern non-Western world power and set its sights on greater imperial expansion. For Russia, however, the disastrous performance in the war was one of the immediate causes of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Pres. Roosevelt, by the way, received the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for his role as mediator.

On 1.2.1918, Wisconsinites left for war in Europe:

1918 – Wisconsin Troops Depart for Europe
On this date the Wisconsin 127th and 128th Infantries departed for France from their training facility at Camp Arthur in Waco, Texas. Initially, these divisions were assigned to construct depots and facilities for troops that would follow. On May 18, they were assigned to the frontline at Belmont in the Alsace where they faced three German divisions. In the following months, 368 troops were killed, wounded or missing. Ironically, their enemy, native Alsatians, spoke German and the Wisconsin troops were better able to communicate with them than their French allies.

Google-a-Day asks a history question: “At what school did the man who was the great grandson of one president and the grandson of another president become a history professor in the 1870’s?”

Happy New Year.

We’ll start off 2013 with a day of sunny skies and a high of only thirteen degrees.

On this day in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation took effect.

On 1.1.1836, a new territory:

1836 – Wisconsin Territory Formed
On this date the Wisconsin Territory was formed by an act of the Michigan Legislature. Brown County lost a portion of its original possession north of the Menominee River but gained the remainder of the eastern peninsula. Territorial officials were sworn on July 4th of the same year.  [Source: Sussex-Lisbon Area Historical Society]

Google-a-Day asks a history question:  “Which of Mary Stuart’s conspirators devised the plot to murder her cousin who, at the time, occupied the throne of England?”

From CNN, here’s a happy-panda-and-ball video to start the year: