Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a mild Saturday with mostly sunny skies and a high of fifty-four. Sunrise is 6:32 and sunset 5:41 for 11h 09m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 80.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1782, the British House of Commons votes against further war in America. Esmond Wright, in Franklin of Philadelphia, describes Britain’s position:

The surrender at Yorktown on October 17, 1781, and the loss of Cornwallis’s army, ended any remaining British hopes of victory on the American mainland. Defeats at the hands of the French in the West Indies in 1781 and early 1782 drove home to Britain the need for an end to hostilities. On February 27, 1782, the House of Commons voted against continuing the American war and authorized the government to make peace with the former colonies. The king threatened to abdicate. On March 20, North resigned and was succeeded by Rockingham, with Shelburne as the secretary of state responsible for colonial affairs, charged to open negotiations with the American peace commissioners.

On this day in 1904, Wisconsin loses her second state capitol building:

1904 – Second State Capitol Burns
On this date fire destroyed the second State Capitol building in Madison. On the evening of the 26th, the generator was turned off for the night. The only lights visible were two gas jets serving the night watchman. At approximately 2 a.m., night watchman Nat Crampton smelled smoke and followed the odor to a recently varnished ceiling, already in flames. A second watchman arrived to assist, but there was no water pressure with which to operate a hose. The fire department encountered a similar situation upon arrival. Governor Robert M. La Follette telegraphed fire departments in Janesville and Milwaukee for assistance. La Follette was at the capitol, directing efforts to douse the fire and entering the burning building to retrieve valuable papers. The fire was completely extinguished by 10 p.m. the next day. Losses were estimated to be close to $1 million.

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday in town will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-six. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset 5:40, for 11h 06m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 87.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1917, Pres. Wilson learns of the Zimmermann Telegram:

In a crucial step toward U.S. entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson learns of the so-called Zimmermann Telegram, a message from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to the German ambassador to Mexico proposing a Mexican-German alliance in the event of a war between the U.S. and Germany.

On February 24, 1917, British authorities gave Walter Hines Page, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, a copy of the Zimmermann Telegram, a coded message from Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence in late January, Zimmermann instructed his ambassador, in the event of a German war with the United States, to offer significant financial aid to Mexico if it agreed to enter the conflict as a German ally. Germany also promised to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

The State Department promptly sent a copy of the Zimmermann Telegram to President Wilson, who was shocked by the note’s content and the next day proposed to Congress that the U.S. should start arming its ships against possible German attacks. Wilson also authorized the State Department to publish the telegram; it appeared on the front pages of American newspapers on March 1. Many Americans were horrified and declared the note a forgery; two days later, however, Zimmermann himself announced that it was genuine.

It’s a spiral ginger plant today from JigZone:

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday will be mostly cloudy and windy with a high of thirty-four. Sunrise is 6:36 and sunset 5:39, for 11h 03m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Downtown Whitewater Board meets at 8 AM, the Seed Capital Screening Committee at 4 PM, and the Community Development Authority Board at 5 PM.

The European Southern Observatory recently took pictures of the plane of the Milky Way. They’re astonishingly beautiful:

This video takes a close look at a new image of the Milky Way released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL). The APEX telescope in Chile has mapped the full area of the Galactic Plane visible from the southern hemisphere for the first time at submillimetre wavelengths — between infrared light and radio waves — and in finer detail than recent space-based surveys.

The APEX data, at a wavelength of 0.87 millimetres, shows up in red and the background blue image was imaged at shorter infrared wavelengths by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope as part of the GLIMPSE survey. The fainter extended red structures come from complementary observations made by ESA’s Planck satellite.

More information and download options: http://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1…

Via European Southern Observatory @ YouTube

On this day in 1862, the Union demonstrates a new weapon at Camp Randall:

1862 – (Civil War) New Cannon Demonstrated at Camp Randall
James Loom exhibited a new breech-loading cannon at Camp Randall in Madison, Wisconsin The cannon was said to be effectively discharged 50 times in four minutes.

JigZone‘s puzzle for today is of a colorful bird:

Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy and windy with a high of thirty-seven. Sunrise is 6:37 and sunset 5:38, for 11h 00m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 96.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1942, Californians worried over a possible Japanese invasion fight the Battle of Los Angeles:

The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as The Great Los Angeles Air Raid, is the name given by contemporary sources to the rumored enemy attack and subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which took place from late 24 February to early 25 February 1942 over Los Angeles, California.^[2][3]The incident occurred less than three months after the United States entered World War II as a result of the Japanese Imperial Navy‘s attack on Pearl Harbor, and one day after the bombardment of Ellwood on 23 February.

Initially, the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, but speaking at a press conference shortly afterward,Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox called the incident a “false alarm.” Newspapers of the time published a number of reports and speculations of a cover-up. Some modern-day UFOlogists have suggested the targets were extraterrestrial spacecraft.^[4] When documenting the incident in 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force History attributed the event to a case of “war nerves” likely triggered by a lost weather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries.

Steven Spielberg’s 1941 is loosely based on nervous reactions like the one in February 1942.

JigZone‘s midweek puzzle is of a gazania: