Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in town will bring thunderstorms and a high of eighty-one.  Sunrise is 6:15 AM and sunset 7:36 PM, for 13h 20m 34s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 24.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1883, volcanic eruptions destroy Krakatoa and cause global effects:

The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) began in the afternoon of August 26, 1883 (with origins as early as May of that year), and culminated with several destructive eruptions of the remaining caldera. On August 27, two-thirds of Krakatoa collapsed in a chain of titanic explosions, destroying most of the island and its surrounding archipelago. Additional alleged seismic activity continued to be reported until February 1884, though reports of those after October 1883 were later dismissed by Rogier Verbeek‘s investigation. It was one of the deadliest and most destructive volcanic events in recorded history, with at least 36,000 deaths being attributed to the eruption itself and the tsunamis it created. Significant additional effects were also felt around the world….

The eruption darkened the sky worldwide for years afterwards, and produced spectacular sunsets throughout the world for many months. British artist William Ashcroft made thousands of colour sketches of the red sunsets halfway around the world from Krakatoa in the years after the eruption. The ash caused “such vivid red sunsets that fire engines were called out in New York, Poughkeepsie, and New Haven to quench the apparent conflagration.”^[16] This eruption also produced a Bishop’s Ring around the sun by day, and a volcanic purple light at twilight.

In 2004, an astronomer proposed the idea that the blood-red sky shown in Edvard Munch‘s famous 1893 painting The Scream is also an accurate depiction of the sky over Norway after the eruption.^[17]

Weather watchers of the time tracked and mapped the effects on the sky. They labeled the phenomenon the “equatorial smoke stream”.^[18] This was the first identification of what is known today as the jet stream.^[19]

For several years following the eruption, it was reported that the moon appeared to be blue and sometimes green. This was because some of the ash clouds were filled with particles about 1 µm wide—the right size to strongly scatter red light, while allowing other colors to pass. White moonbeams shining through the clouds emerged blue, and sometimes green. People also saw lavender suns and, for the first time, recorded noctilucent clouds.^[16]

On this day in 1878, Sholes patents the typewriter:

On this date Christopher Latham Sholes patented the typewriter. The idea for this invention began at Kleinsteuber’s Machine Shop in Milwaukee in the late 1860s. A mechanical engineer by training, Sholes, along with associates Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé, spent hours tinkering with the idea. They mounted the key of an old telegraph instrument on a base and tapped down on it to hit carbon & paper against a glass plate.

This idea was simple, but in 1868 the mere idea that type striking against paper might produce an image was a novelty. Sholes proceeded to construct a machine to reproduce the entire alphabet. The prototype was sent to Washington as the required Patent Model. This original model still exists at the Smithsonian. Investor James Densmore provided the marketing impetus which eventually brought the machine to the Remington Arms Company. Although Remington mass-marketed his typewriter beginning in 1874, it was not an instant success.

A few years later, improvements made by Remington engineers gave the machine its market appeal and sales skyrocketed. [Source: Wisconsin Lore and Legends, p.41]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset is 7:37 PM for 13h 23m 19s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 35.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

When Olympian Katie Ledecky threw out the first pitch at a Nationals game, Bryce Harper stood nearby holding all her many Olympic medals:

On 8.26.1939, an experimental first:

On this day in 1939, television station W2XBS in New York City broadcasts a doubleheader between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. The game, filmed with two cameras, was the first Major League Baseball game ever aired on television.

W2XBS in Manhattan, a trailblazing television station owned by NBC, was the first to broadcast not just baseball, but college and professional football in 1939 and hockey and basketball in 1940. The station’s first foray into baseball broadcasting came in May 1939 when it aired a game between Columbia and Princeton universities from Baker Field in upper Manhattan–using just one camera that was essentially unable to follow the game as well as the naked eye. Three months later for the major league game, a second camera was added in order to better follow the action on the field. The first was placed by the visitor’s dugout down the third base line; the second camera was in the stands directly behind home plate. Newspapers reported that the ball could be seen leaving the pitcher’s hand on the way to home plate some of the time, a dramatic improvement over the first broadcast at Columbia.

Red Barber, the long-time radio voice of the Dodgers, also called the game for the broadcast. In the first game, Reds ace pitcher Bucky Walters flummoxed the Dodgers, holding them to just two hits in a 5-2 win. The Dodgers got their revenge in the second game with a 6-1 victory. In that second game, Dodger pitcher Hugh Casey snagged his ninth win with help from first baseman Dolf Camilli, who hit a two-run game-winning home run, his 22nd of the year, in the second inning.

The game was broadcast from New York City’s Empire State Building, completed just eight years earlier, and could be seen in homes up to 50 miles away.

A Google a Day asks a pop culture question: “Near what sea is the actual lighthouse where British inserts were filmed for Fraggle Rock?”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thunderstorms this morning will give way to partly cloudy skies and a high of eighty.  Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 7:39 PM, for 13h 26m 04s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 46.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1944, the Allies liberate Paris:

The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) was a military action that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. Paris had been ruled by Nazi Germany since the signing of the Second Compiègne Armistice on 22 June 1940, after which the Wehrmacht occupied northern and western France.

The liberation began when the French Forces of the Interior—the military structure of the French Resistance—staged an uprising against the German garrison upon the approach of the US Third Army, led by General George Patton. On the night of 24 August, elements of General Philippe Leclerc‘s 2nd French Armoured Division (the Régiment de marche du Tchad, a mechanised infantry unit led by Captain Raymond Dronne and composed primarily of exiled Spanish republicans), made its way into Paris and arrived at the Hôtel de Ville shortly before midnight. The next morning, 25 August, the bulk of the 2nd Armored Division and US 4th Infantry Division entered the city. Dietrich von Choltitz, commander of the German garrison and the military governor of Paris, surrendered to the French at the Hôtel Meurice, the newly established French headquarters, while General Charles de Gaulle arrived to assume control of the city as head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic.

On this day in 1835, Wisconsin moves closer to becoming a territory:

1835 – Incorporation of the Wisconsin Internal Improvement Company

On this date the Michigan legislature incorporated the Wisconsin Internal Improvement Company to open communication between Green Bay and the Mississippi by land or water. It was also on this day that the Governor of the Michigan territory (the Wisconsin territory was not yet created), Stevens T. Mason, officially called for the creation of a western legislative council. Both actions were critical to the creation of the Wisconsin Territory.[Source: Card File in WHS Library]

A Google a Day asks a sports question: “In 2011, who was the president of the club that was established to promote safety in the game of American football?”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Morning thunderstorms will give way to cloudy skies and a high of eighty this Wednesday. Sunrise is 6:12 AM and sunset 7:41 PM, for 13h 28m 46s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 58.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5 PM, and the Parks & Recreation Board at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 79, Mount Vesuvius erupts:

In the year of 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted in one of the most catastrophic and famous eruptions of all time. Historians have learned about the eruption from the eyewitness account of Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator and poet.^[33]

….Mount Vesuvius spawned a deadly cloud of stones, ash and fumes to a height of 33 km (20.5 mi), spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 Mt/s, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima bombing.^[2] The towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed by pyroclastic flows and the ruins buried under dozens of feet of tephra.^[2][33]

….Reconstructions of the eruption and its effects vary considerably in the details but have the same overall features. The eruption lasted two days. The morning of the first day was perceived as normal by the only eyewitness to leave a surviving document, Pliny the Younger. In the middle of the day an explosion threw up a high-altitude column from which ash began to fall, blanketing the area. Rescues and escapes occurred during this time. At some time in the night or early the next day pyroclastic flows in the close vicinity of the volcano began. Lights were seen on the mountain interpreted as fires. People as far away as Misenum fled for their lives. The flows were rapid-moving, dense and very hot, knocking down wholly or partly all structures in their path, incinerating or suffocating all population remaining there and altering the landscape, including the coastline. These were accompanied by additional light tremors and a mild tsunami in the Bay of Naples. By evening of the second day the eruption was over, leaving only haze in the atmosphere through which the sun shone weakly.

August 24, 1970 sees a bombing on the UW-Madison campus:

1970 – Sterling Hall Bombing on UW-Madison Campus

On this date a car bomb exploded outside Sterling Hall, killing research scientist Robert Fassnacht. Sterling Hall was targeted for housing the Army Mathematics Research Center and was bombed in protest of the war in Vietnam. The homemade bomb (2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate soaked in aviation fuel) was detonated by the New Year’s Gang, aka Vanguard of the Revolution, who demanded that a Milwaukee Black Panther official be released from police custody, ROTC be expelled from the UW campus, and “women’s hours” be abolished on campus. The entire New Year’s Gang fled to Canada the evening of the explosion. Four men were charged with this crime: Karleton Armstrong, David Fine, Dwight Armstrong, and Leo Burt. All but Burt were captured and served time for their participation. Leo Burt remains at large.[Source: On Wisconsin Summer 2005]

A Google a Day asks a sports question: “What is the common term used by the America’s Cup organization, for an object shaped like an airplane wing, designed to direct the flow of air over its surface?”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty.  Sunrise is 6:11 AM and sunset is 7:42 PM, for 13h 31m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 69.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Tokyo will host the next Summer Olympic Games, in 2020, and it’s likely to be quite an event (and that really is the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, appearing as video-game character Mario toward the end of the clip):

On this day in 1775, King George declares the American colonies in a state of rebellion:

The Proclamation of Rebellion, officially titled A Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, was the response of George III of Great Britain to the news of the Battle of Bunker Hill at the outset of the American Revolutionary War. Issued August 23, 1775, it declared elements of the American colonies in a state of “open and avowed rebellion.” It ordered officials of the British Empire “to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion.” The Proclamation also encouraged subjects throughout the Empire, including those in Great Britain, to report anyone carrying on “traitorous correspondence” with the rebels so that they could be punished.

The Proclamation was written before Colonial Secretary Lord Dartmouth had been given a copy of the Olive Branch Petition from the Continental Congress. Because the king refused to receive the petition, the Proclamation effectively served as an answer to the petition.^[1]

….The Second Continental Congress issued a response to the Proclamation on December 6, saying that while they had always been loyal to the king, the British Parliament never had any legitimate claim to authority over them, because the colonies were not democratically represented. Congress argued that it was their duty to continue resisting Parliament’s violations of the British Constitution, and that they would retaliate if any supporters in Great Britain were punished for “favouring, aiding, or abetting the cause of American liberty.” Congress maintained that they still hoped to avoid the “calamities” of a “civil war.”

The Proclamation and the Speech from the Throne undermined moderates in the Continental Congress like John Dickinson, who had been arguing that the king would find a way to resolve the dispute between the colonies and Parliament. When it became clear that the king was not inclined to act as a conciliator, colonial attachment to the Empire was weakened, and a movement towards declaring independence became a reality, culminating in the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

A Google a Day asks a geography question for Tuesday: “What famous Alexandrian was responsible for the most popular map printed from movable type in the fifteenth century?”