Beautiful Sunday weather is ahead for Whitewater. We’ll have partly sunny skies, a high of seventy-two, and light winds at five to ten miles per hour.

On this day in 1961, “astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became America’s first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.”

Shepard wasn’t the first man in space, but Americans yet had reason to be proud of his accomplishment.

On 5.5.1862, Wisconsin soldiers fought in Virginia:

1862 – (Civil War) Battle of Williamsburg, Virginia

The Battle of Williamsburg was a key engagement in the Peninsular Campaign that began on March 17, 1862. The 5th Wisconsin Infantry and Company G of the 1st U.S. Sharpshooters participated in this battle. Outnumbered Confederate forces held off the Union advance long enough for the bulk of the Confederate army to continue its withdrawal toward the capital at Richmond.

Google’s daily question isn’t just about art, but an art collector: “In 1861, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte bought 11,835 artworks for the Louvre, including 641 paintings from what Italian art collector?”

Good morning.

A Saturday of isolated, afternoon thunderstorms and a high of sixty-nine awaits. Whitewater will enjoy 14h 13m of sunlight, 15h 16m of daylight, with a waning crescent moon.

On this day in 1927, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded. At the Academy’s website, among so many other offerings, there’s an interesting interview with special effects designer Douglas Trumball, on the Science of Movies. Trumbull talks about creating believable effects through the use of miniatures, his film “Silent Running,” and plans for future filmmaking.

On this day in 1864, Wisconsin soldiers take part in the Wilderness Campaign:

1864 – (Civil War) Wilderness Campaign opens in Virginia
Union forces crossed the Rapidan River in Virginia and prepared to fight at the Wilderness the next day. The resulting series of battles between May 5 and June 12, 1864, is called the Wilderness Campaign, or Grant’s Overland Campaign.

The 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 19th, 36th and 38th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 4th Wisconsin Light Artillery participated in this series of bloody battles. The initial Battle of the Wilderness on May 5-7, 1864, produced nearly 30,000 casualties without giving either side a clear victory.

Google poses a question about French design: “Of what type of architecture is the Paris Cathedral that in 1970 was the site of Charles de Gaulle’s funeral?”

Good morning.

It will be a rainy day with a high of fifty-one for Whitewater.

It’s Machiavelli’s birthday:

On this day in 1469, the Italian philosopher and writer Niccolo Machiavelli is born. A lifelong patriot and diehard proponent of a unified Italy, Machiavelli became one of the fathers of modern political theory….

Machiavelli’s political life took a downward turn after 1512, when he fell out of favor with the powerful Medici family. He was accused of conspiracy, imprisoned, tortured and temporarily exiled. It was an attempt to regain a political post and the Medici family’s good favor that Machiavelli penned The Prince, which was to become his most well-known work.

Though released in book form posthumously in 1532, The Prince was first published as a pamphlet in 1513. In it, Machiavelli outlined his vision of an ideal leader: an amoral, calculating tyrant for whom the end justifies the means. The Prince not only failed to win the Medici family’s favor, it also alienated him from the Florentine people. Machiavelli was never truly welcomed back into politics, and when the Florentine Republic was reestablished in 1527, Machiavelli was an object of great suspicion. He died later that year, embittered and shut out from the Florentine society to which he had devoted his life.

Though Machiavelli has long been associated with the practice of diabolical expediency in the realm of politics that was made famous in The Prince, his actual views were not so extreme. In fact, in such longer and more detailed writings asDiscourses on the First Ten Books of Livy (1517) and History of Florence (1525), he shows himself to be a more principled political moralist. Still, even today, the term “Machiavellian” is used to describe an action undertaken for gain without regard for right or wrong.

In Wisconsin history, Golda Meier is born on this date in 1898:

1898 – Golda Meir Born
On this date, Golda Meir (nee Mabovitch) was born in Kiev, Russia. Economic hardship forced her family to emigrate to the United States in 1906, where they settled in Milwaukee. She graduated from the Milwaukee Normal School (now University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and joined the Poalei Zion, the Milwaukee Labor Zionist Party, in 1915.

In 1921, she emigrated to Palestine with her husband, Morris Myerson, where they worked for the establishment of the State of Israel. Meir served as Israel’s Minister of Labor and National Insurance from 1949 through 1956 and as the Foreign Minister until January of 1966. When Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died suddenly in 1969, Meir assumed the post, becoming the world’s third female Prime Minister. She died in Jerusalem on December 8, 1978. [Source: Picturing Golda Meier]

Google-a-Day asks about a treaty: “What treaty was responsible for the creation of the intergovernmental organization that would eventually be replaced by the UN?”

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be a bit cooler, and a bit wetter (perhaps), than yesterday: a high of fifty-nine and a one-third chance for showers.

The Landmarks Commission meets at this evening at 6 PM.

On this day in 1941, a breakfast offering is born: “General Mills began shipping a new cereal called “Cheerioats” to six test markets. (The cereal was later renamed ‘Cheerios.’)” Cheerios billed itself as the world’s first “ready-to-eat oat cereal.”

Google-a-Day poses a question about pop culture: “Which playwright’s work inspired the 2011 film directed by the actor who played Count Laszio de Almásy in 1996?”

Good morning.

A new month begins with mostly sunny skies, a high of 81, and southwest winds at 5 to 10 mph. We’ll have 14h 6m of sunlight, 15h 8m of daylight, and a waning gibbous moon. There will be two minutes more light tomorrow.

Tonight at 5:30 and again at 6:30, in Hyland Hall Room 3101, there will be training sessions for business people on a Digital Mapping Project: the sessions will present tips on marketing a business in an environment of digital communication. For more information, see Wednesday, May 1st: The Digital Whitewater Mapping Project.

It’s the anniversary of the Empire State Building’s dedication ceremony:

On this day in 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City’s Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turns on the building’s lights. Hoover’s gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York.

The idea for the Empire State Building is said to have been born of a competition between Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and John Jakob Raskob of General Motors, to see who could erect the taller building. Chrysler had already begun work on the famous Chrysler Building, the gleaming 1,046-foot skyscraper in midtown Manhattan. Not to be bested, Raskob assembled a group of well-known investors, including former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith. The group chose the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates to design the building. The Art-Deco plans, said to have been based in large part on the look of a pencil, were also builder-friendly: The entire building went up in just over a year, under budget (at $40 million) and well ahead of schedule. During certain periods of building, the frame grew an astonishing four-and-a-half stories a week.

At the time of its completion, the Empire State Building, at 102 stories and 1,250 feet high (1,454 feet to the top of the lightning rod), was the world’s tallest skyscraper. The Depression-era construction employed as many as 3,400 workers on any single day, most of whom received an excellent pay rate, especially given the economic conditions of the time. The new building imbued New York City with a deep sense of pride, desperately needed in the depths of the Great Depression, when many city residents were unemployed and prospects looked bleak. The grip of the Depression on New York’s economy was still evident a year later, however, when only 25 percent of the Empire State’s offices had been rented….

Google has a question about a mountain in Europe: “What mountain in Switzerland includes three types of glacial erosion, and resembles an ancient Egyptian structure with four specific sides?”