Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday brings a probability of morning rain with a high of seventy-nine to Whitewater. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset 8:22, for 15h 01m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 66.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Tech Park Board meets this morning at 8 AM, as does Downtown Whitewater at the same time Thursday AM.

On this day in 1937, the Golden Gate bridge opens to pedestrian traffic:

The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to Marin County, bridging both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. The bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and the United States. It has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.^[7]

The Frommers travel guide considers the Golden Gate Bridge “possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world”.^[8] It opened in 1937 and was, until 1964, the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 4,200 feet (1,300 m)….

The bridge-opening celebration began on May 27, 1937 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed either on foot or on roller skates.^[9] On opening day, Mayor Angelo Rossi and other officials rode the ferry to Marin, then crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial “barriers”, the last a blockade of beauty queens who required Joseph Strauss to present the bridge to the Highway District before allowing him to pass. An official song, “There’s a Silver Moon on the Golden Gate“, was chosen to commemorate the event. Strauss wrote a poem that is now on the Golden Gate Bridge entitled “The Mighty Task is Done.” The next day, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington, D.C. signaling the official start of vehicle traffic over the Bridge at noon. When the celebration got out of hand, the SFPD had a small riot in the uptown Polk Gulch area. Weeks of civil and cultural activities called “the Fiesta” followed. A statue of Strauss was moved in 1955 to a site near the bridge.^[15]

On this day in 1844, a socialist community opens near Ripon. By 1850, human nature took its toll, and ended the project:

On this date the first settler moved to the Fourierite utopian community in what is now Ripon. This communal society was based upon the teachings of Charles Fourier, a French Socialist, who urged the rebuilding of society from its foundation as the only cure for economic hardship. This especially appealed to those suffering from the 1837 Depression.

The communal village was named Ceresco after the goddess of agriculture, Ceres. Also known as the Wisconsin Phalanx, the community thrived for six years, with membership reaching 180 in 1845.

The community officially disbanded in 1850 after many members decided to farm for their own profit. Families gradually left the commune to work and live on their own property. The center of the commune, the “Long House,” remained vacant until the 1930s when people suffering from the Great Depression found shelter and comfort there. Community founder Warren Chase said of the failed community “It was prematurely born, and tried to live before its proper time, and of course, must die and be born again. So it did and here it lies.” [Source: Wisconsin Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes, pg. 94-104]

Here’s Puzzability‘s midweek game in its Cheese Filling series:

This Week’s Game — May 25-29

Cheese Filling

We’ve got string cheese on the menu all week. For each day, we’ll give you three clues, each of which leads to a word. The answers to two of those clues, when placed together in the right order, have the name of a cheese spanning the gap between the answers. When the cheese’s name is removed, the remaining letters, in order, spell the answer to the day’s remaining clue. The clues are presented in random order.

Example:

Affleck’s Good Will Hunting costar; river of South America; astound

Answer:

AMAZEDAMON (Damon, Amazon, amaze; the cheese is Edam)

What to Submit:

Submit just the full string of letters, with the cheese in the middle (as “AMAZEDAMON” in the example), for your answer.

Wednesday, May 27

Tricky pool shot; writer Willa; one more

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in the Whippet City will bring thunderstorms and a high temperature of seventy-three. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset 8:21, for 14h 59m 51s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 56.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets today at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1637, an alliance of Puritans, Mohegan, and Narragansett murders hundreds of Pequot:

On May 26, 1637, with a force up to about 400 fighting men, Mason attacked Misistuck by surprise. He estimated that “six or seven Hundred” Pequot were there when his forces assaulted the palisade. As some 150 warriors had accompanied Sassacus to Hartford, so the inhabitants remaining were largely Pequot women and children, and older men. Mason ordered that the enclosure be set on fire.

Justifying his conduct later, Mason declared that the attack against the Pequot was the act of a God who “laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to scorn making [the Pequot] as a fiery Oven… Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling [Mystic] with dead Bodies.”^[16] Mason insisted that any Pequot attempting to escape the flames should be killed. Of the estimated 600 to 700 Pequot resident at Mystic that day, only seven survived to be taken prisoner, while another seven escaped to the woods.^[17]

The Narragansett and Mohegan warriors with Mason and Underhill’s colonial militia were horrified by the actions and “manner of the Englishmen’s fight… because it is too furious, and slays too many men.”^[18][19] The Narragansett left the warfare and returned home.

Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game in this week’s Cheese Filling series:

This Week’s Game — May 25-29

Cheese Filling

We’ve got string cheese on the menu all week. For each day, we’ll give you three clues, each of which leads to a word. The answers to two of those clues, when placed together in the right order, have the name of a cheese spanning the gap between the answers. When the cheese’s name is removed, the remaining letters, in order, spell the answer to the day’s remaining clue. The clues are presented in random order.

Example:

Affleck’s Good Will Hunting costar; river of South America; astound

Answer:

AMAZEDAMON (Damon, Amazon, amaze; the cheese is Edam)

What to Submit:

Submit just the full string of letters, with the cheese in the middle (as “AMAZEDAMON” in the example), for your answer.

Tuesday, May 26

Bird with dark, lustrous plumage; like some collars returned from the laundry; sweetheart

Good morning, Whitewater.

Memorial Day in Whitewater will see thunderstorms in the morning, with a high of eighty-one for the day. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset 8:20, for 14h 58m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1977, Star Wars opens.

Here’s the original teaser trailer:

This Week’s Game — May 25-29

Cheese Filling

We’ve got string cheese on the menu all week. For each day, we’ll give you three clues, each of which leads to a word. The answers to two of those clues, when placed together in the right order, have the name of a cheese spanning the gap between the answers. When the cheese’s name is removed, the remaining letters, in order, spell the answer to the day’s remaining clue. The clues are presented in random order.

Example:

Affleck’s Good Will Hunting costar; river of South America; astound

Answer:

AMAZEDAMON (Damon, Amazon, amaze; the cheese is Edam)

What to Submit:

Submit just the full string of letters, with the cheese in the middle (as “AMAZEDAMON” in the example), for your answer.

Monday, May 25

Shoreside platform; laser printer cartridge contents; stamen’s counterpart

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy, with thunderstorms, and a high of sixty-five. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset 8:20, for 14h 56m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 38.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW poll asked whether, in the effort to save endangered species, a priority should go to pandas (as a high-profile, sharp-looking animal). A majority of respondents (60%) said that we should not prioritize panda survival, but that we should develop a different set of standards.

On this day in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge opens to traffic:

The bridge—originally referred to as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and as the East River Bridge^{[citation needed]}— was opened for use on May 24, 1883. The opening ceremony was attended by several thousand people and many ships were present in the East Bay for the occasion. President Chester A. Arthur and Mayor Franklin Edson crossed the bridge to celebratory cannon fire and were greeted by Brooklyn Mayor Seth Low when they reached the Brooklyn-side tower.^[26] Arthur shook hands with Washington Roebling at the latter’s home, after the ceremony. Roebling was unable to attend the ceremony (and in fact rarely visited the site again), but held a celebratory banquet at his house on the day of the bridge opening. Further festivity included the performance of a band, gunfire from ships, and a fireworks display.^[27]

On that first day, a total of 1,800 vehicles and 150,300 people crossed what was then the only land passage between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Emily Warren Roebling was the first to cross the bridge. The bridge’s main span over the East River is 1,595 feet 6 inches (486.3 m). The bridge cost US$15.5 million in 1883 dollars (about US$379,661,000 in today’s dollars) to build and an estimated number of 27 people died during its construction.^[28]

On May 30, 1883, six days after the opening, a rumor that the Bridge was going to collapse caused a stampede, which was responsible for at least twelve people being crushed and killed.^[29] On May 17, 1884, P. T. Barnum helped to squelch doubts about the bridge’s stability—while publicizing his famous circus—when one of his most famous attractions, Jumbo, led a parade of 21 elephants over the Brooklyn Bridge.^{[30][31][32][33]}

Sixteen years later, in 1899, Thomas Edison’s company filmed a crossing from Brooklyn into New York:

Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in town will be mostly sunny, with a high of seventy-seven.  Sunrise is 5:24 and sunset 8:19, for 14h 54m 57s of daytime.

On this day in 1934, bank robbers and members of a murderous gang Bonnie and Clyde find that their vicious crime spree comes to an end:

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut Barrow a.k.a. Clyde Champion Barrow^[1] (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) were American outlaws and robbers from the Dallas area who traveled the central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. At times, the gang included Buck Barrow, Blanche Barrow, Raymond Hamilton, W. D. Jones, Joe Palmer,Ralph Fults, and Henry Methvin. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the “Public Enemy Era“, between 1931 and 1935. Though known today for his dozen-or-so bank robberies, Barrow preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations. The gang is believed to have killed at least nine police officers and several civilians. The couple were eventually ambushed and killed near the town of Sailes, Louisiana, in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, by law officers.

On this day in 1908, a Nobel Prize winner is born in Wisconsin:

1908 – John Bardeen Born
On this date double Nobel Prize winner John Bardeen was born in Madison, Wisconsin. Bardeen attended high school in Madison and went on to study Electrical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin where he received a B.S. in 1928 and an M.S. in 1929.

After working at Gulf Research Laboratories, Bardeen returned to graduate studies in 1933 at Princeton in mathematical physics. Bardeen, along with Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for “investigations on semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect.”

In 1957, Bardeen and two colleagues, L.N. Cooper and J.R. Schrieffer, proposed the first successful explanation of superconductivity.

He shared the 1972 Nobel Prize with L.N. Cooper and J.R. Schrieffer for the theory of superconductivity. He received the distinguished Lomonosov Award of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1987. In 1990, Bardeen was one of 11 recipients of the Third Century Award honoring exceptional contributions to American creativity. He was also named by Life Magazine as one of the “100 most influential people of the century.” Dr. Bardeen died on January 30, 1991. [Source: Nobelprize.org]