Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have showers this morning with a daytime high of seventy-two. Sunrise is 6:16 and sunset is 7:34, for 3h 17m 09s of daytime. We’ve a full moon today.

It’s the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s second, and far more destructive, landfall along southeast Louisiana:

Hurricane Katrina was the eleventh named storm and fifth hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliesthurricanes, in the history of the United States. The storm is currently ranked as the third most intense United States landfalling tropical cyclone, behind only the 1935 Labor Day hurricane and Hurricane Camille in 1969. Overall, at least 1,245 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods, making it the deadliest United States hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Total property damage was estimated at $108 billion (2005 USD),^[1] roughly four times the damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.^[3] Later, Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 caused more damage than Hurricane Andrew, but both were far less destructive than Katrina.

Katrina originated over the Bahamas on August 23 from the interaction between a tropical wave and the remnants of Tropical Depression Ten. Early the following day, the new depression intensified into Tropical Storm Katrina. The cyclone headed generally westward toward Florida and strengthened into a hurricane only two hours before making landfall Hallandale Beach andAventura on August 25. After very briefly weakening to a tropical storm, Katrina emerged into the Gulf of Mexico on August 26 and began to rapidly deepen. The storm strengthened to aCategory 5 hurricane over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, but weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on August 29 in southeast Louisiana.

Embedded below, from Alexandra Garcia, Margaret Cheatham Williams, and Andrew Blackwell, is a documentary describing New Orleans ten years on:

On this day in 1991, the Soviet Parliament, following a coup attempt, suspends the Communist Party:

Moscow, Aug. 29 — After three hours of anguished debate, the Soviet Parliament voted today to suspend all activities of the Communist Party pending an investigation of its role in the coup. It was an action that confirmed the demise of the old regime even as the search quickened for new forms of association and order.

The fate of the party was already sealed before Parliament’s vote. Individual republics had closed its offices and seized its vast properties and funds and President Mikhail S. Gorbachev had quit as its General Secretary and had called on the leadership to step down.

But Parliament was the only national institution with the formal powers to act against the entire organization, and its decision served to confirm the indictment already passed by the people.

Good morning, Whitewater.

The end of the work week in Whitewater will bring a likelihood of afternoon showers and a high of seventy-four. Sunrise is 6:15 and sunset 7:35, for 13h 19m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Washington, Aug. 28 — More than 200,000 Americans, most of them black but many of them white, demonstrated here today for a full and speedy program of civil rights and equal job opportunities.

It was the greatest assembly for a redress of grievances that this capital has ever seen.

One hundred years and 240 days after Abraham Lincoln enjoined the emancipated slaves to “abstain from all violence” and “labor faithfully for reasonable wages,” this vast throng proclaimed in march and song and through the speeches of their leaders that they were still waiting for the freedom and the jobs.

Text of the speech is available online.

On this day in 1928, Babe Ruth demonstrates his hitting power in Milwaukee:

1928 – Babe Ruth Cracks Homer in Milwaukee

On this date Babe Ruth hit a towering game-winning home run in the ninth inning to give his team a 5-4 victory in a baseball exhibition at Borchert Field in Milwaukee. Lou Gehrig also played at this event. [Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

A Google a Day asks a geography question:

What mountain in Switzerland includes three types of glacial erosion, and resembles an ancient Egyptian structure with four specific sides?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-seven. Sunrise is 6:14 and sunset 7:37, for 13h 22m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 92.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Downtown Whitewater’s Board meets this morning at 8 AM.

Owing to the decades-long embargo, Cubans have kept older American cars running as best they could. Here are some of the classic cars still running on the streets of Havana:

On this day in 1883, a devastating volcanic explosion takes places:

The most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occurs on Krakatau (also called Krakatoa), a small, uninhabited volcanic island located west of Sumatra in Indonesia, on this day in 1883. Heard 3,000 miles away, the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into the air, created 120-foot tsunamis and killed 36,000 people.

Krakatau exhibited its first stirrings in more than 200 years on May 20, 1883. A German warship passing by reported a seven-mile high cloud of ash and dust over Krakatau. For the next two months, similar explosions would be witnessed by commercial liners and natives on nearby Java and Sumatra. With little to no idea of the impending catastrophe, the local inhabitants greeted the volcanic activity with festive excitement.

On August 26 and August 27, excitement turned to horror as Krakatau literally blew itself apart, setting off a chain of natural disasters that would be felt around the world for years to come. An enormous blast on the afternoon of August 26 destroyed the northern two-thirds of the island; as it plunged into the Sunda Strait, between the Java Sea and Indian Ocean, the gushing mountain generated a series of pyroclastic flows (fast-moving fluid bodies of molten gas, ash and rock) and monstrous tsunamis that swept over nearby coastlines. Four more eruptions beginning at 5:30 a.m. the following day proved cataclysmic. The explosions could be heard as far as 3,000 miles away, and ash was propelled to a height of 50 miles. Fine dust from the explosion drifted around the earth, causing spectacular sunsets and forming an atmospheric veil that lowered temperatures worldwide by several degrees.

Of the estimated 36,000 deaths resulting from the eruption, at least 31,000 were caused by the tsunamis created when much of the island fell into the water. The greatest of these waves measured 120 feet high, and washed over nearby islands, stripping away vegetation and carrying people out to sea. Another 4,500 people were scorched to death from the pyroclastic flows that rolled over the sea, stretching as far as 40 miles, according to some sources.

In addition to Krakatau, which is still active, Indonesia has another 130 active volcanoes, the most of any country in the world.

On this day in 1878, a patent for a true innovation in writing and communication:

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]

A Google a Day asks a question about literature:

What poem title did T. S. Eliot say he created by combining the titles of a romance by William Morris with the title of a Rudyard Kipling poem?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in town will be mostly cloudy with a high of seventy-eight. Sunrise is 6:13 and sunset is 7:39, for 13h 25m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s University Tech Park Board meets at 8 AM this morning, and the Community Development Authority at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution takes effect:

Washington, Aug. 26 — The half-century struggle for woman suffrage in the United States reached its climax at 8 o’clock this morning, when Bainbridge Colby, as Secretary of State, issued his proclamation announcing that the Nineteenth Amendment had become a part of the Constitution of the United States.

The signing of the proclamation took place at that hour at Secretary Colby’s residence, 1507 K Street Northwest, without ceremony of any kind, and the issuance of the proclamation was unaccompanied by the taking of movies or other pictures, despite the fact that the National Woman’s Party, or militant branch of the general suffrage movement, had been anxious to be represented by a delegation of women and to have the historic event filmed for public display and permanent record.

Secretary Colby did not act with undue haste in signing the proclamation, but only after he had given careful study to the packet which arrived by mail during the early morning hours containing the certificate of the Governor of Tennessee that that State’s Legislature had ratified the Congressional resolution submitting the amendment to the States for action.

On this day in 1863, Wisconsin soldiers see action on behalf of the Union:

1863 – (Civil War) Assault at Perryville, Oklahoma
The 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry was among the Union forces who assaulted Perryville, Oklahoma.

A Google a Day asks a pop culture question:

Who is the mother of the mother of the first grandchild of the “Demon of Screamin'”?