Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be a day of decreasing clouds with a high of thirty-seven. Sunrise is 7:20 AM and sunset 4:50 PM, for 9h 29m 53s of daytime.

Friday’s FW poll asked if readers thought that a video of a supposed ghost in Blackburn, England seemed convincing. A majority of respondents (82.76%) said that they were unconvinced (‘you must be kidding’).

On this day in 1803, Pres. Jefferson requests $2,500 from Congress:

….President Thomas Jefferson sends a special confidential message to Congress asking for money to fund the journey of Lewis and Clark….

Jefferson directed Lewis to draw up an estimate of expenses. Basing his calculations on a party of one officer and 10 enlisted men—the number was deliberately kept small to avoid inspiring both congressional criticisms and Indian fears of invasion—Lewis carefully added up the costs for provisions, weapons, gunpowder, scientific instruments, and a large boat. The final tally came to $2,500. The largest item was $696, earmarked for gifts to Indians.

Following the advice of his secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, Jefferson decided not to include the request in his general proposed annual budget, since it involved exploration outside of the nation’s own territory. Instead, on January 18, 1803, he sent a special secret message to Congress asking for the money, taking pains to stress that the proposed exploration would be an aid to American commerce. Jefferson noted that the Indians along the proposed route of exploration up the Missouri River “furnish a great supply of furs & pelts to the trade of another nation carried on in a high latitude.” If a route into this territory existed, “possibly with a single portage, from the Western ocean,” Jefferson suggested Americans might have a superior means of exploiting the fur trade. Though carefully couched in diplomatic language, Jefferson’s message to Congress was clear: a U.S. expedition might be able to steal the fur trade from the British and find the long hoped-for Northwest passage to the Pacific.

Despite some mild resistance from Federalists who never saw any point in spending money on the West, Jefferson’s carefully worded request prevailed, and Congress approved the $2,500 appropriation by a sizeable margin. It no doubt seemed trivial in comparison to the $9,375,000 they had approved a week earlier for the Louisiana Purchase, which brought much of the territory Jefferson was proposing to explore under American control….

On this day in 1908, tobacco goes up in smoke:

1908 – Fire Destroys Tobacco Warehouse
On this date fire devastated the tobacco warehouse of Julius Marqusee & Co. An estimated 4,000 cases of tobacco were destroyed. Losses were estimated at $250,000, Janesville’s largest property loss to that date. Three firemen suffered injuries fighting the blaze. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Good morning, Whitewater.

It’s only the seventeenth day of the year, but (at least so far) Saturday, January 17th will claim the title of warmest day of the year. The high temperature in town will be about forty-two, on a mostly cloudy day. Sunrise is 7:21 AM and sunset 4:49 PM, for 9h 28m 04s of daytime.

On this day in 1893, Hawaii loses her monarch:

…a group of American sugar planters under Sanford Ballard Dole overthrow Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, and establish a new provincial government with Dole as president. The coup occurred with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, and 300 U.S. Marines from the U.S. cruiser Boston were called to Hawaii, allegedly to protect American lives….

President Grover Cleveland sent a new U.S. minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne under the 1887 constitution, but Dole refused to step aside and instead proclaimed the independent Republic of Hawaii. Cleveland was unwilling to overthrow the government by force, and his successor, President William McKinley, negotiated a treaty with the Republic of Hawaii in 1897. In 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out, and the strategic use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the war convinced Congress to approve formal annexation.

On this day in 1900, female cotton workers in Wisconsin go on strike:

1900 – Female Cotton Mill Workers Strike
On this date 100 female employees of the Monterey mill, affiliated with the Janesville Cotton Mills, went on strike for higher wages. According to local sources, a committee of four “good-looking young ladies” was appointed to negotiate with management. Doing piece work, the women earned only $40 a month. The company said the women “don’t know how good they’ve got it…because they are paid more than at other local cotton mills and as well as some men with families.” The women argued their monthly pay only averaged $20. Within three days, all the women were hired to work by tobacco warehouses. The Monterey mill was one of three Janesville cotton mills in operation at the turn of the century. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Our Friday will be mostly cloudy but mild, with a high of twenty-six. Sunrise is 7:21 AM and sunset 4:47 PM, for 9h 26m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 20.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1991, Pres. George H.W. Bush tells the nation that Operation Desert Storm had begun. The next morning, the New York Times published news of the American-led campaign to drive the Iraqi Army from Kuwait:

WASHINGTON, Thursday, Jan. 17 — The United States and allied forces Wednesday night opened the long threatened war to drive President Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait, striking Baghdad and other targets in Iraq and Kuwait with waves of bombers and cruise missiles launched from naval vessels.

“The liberation of Kuwait has begun,” President Bush said in a three-sentence statement confirming the start of the attack that was read by his spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, shortly after the raids began.

Later, in a televised address to the nation from the Oval Office a somber Mr. Bush said that after months of continuous diplomatic overtures had failed to produce movement by Iraq, the United States and its allies “have no choice but to force Saddam from Kuwait by force. We will not fail.”

Google-a-Day asks a geography question:

What area with nearly 2 million life forms was created to protect the wildlife of the country with the largest economy in Africa?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in the Whippet City will be a mostly sunny day with a high of twenty-nine. Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:46 PM, for 9h 24m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 29.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1967, the first Super Bowl ends just as it should have, Packers 35, Chiefs 10:

The First AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional football, later known retroactively as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporary reports as the Supergame,[2] was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The National Football League (NFL) champion Green Bay Packers defeated the American Football League (AFL) champion Kansas City Chiefs by the score of 35–10.

Coming into this game, considerable animosity remained between the AFL and NFL, thus the teams representing the two rival leagues (Kansas City and Green Bay, respectively) felt pressure to win. The Chiefs posted an 11–2–1 record during the 1966 AFL season, and defeated the Buffalo Bills, 31–7, in the 1966 AFL Championship Game. The Packers finished the 1966 NFL season at 12–2, and defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 34–27, in the 1966 NFL Championship Game. Still, many sports writers and fans believed any team in the older NFL was vastly superior to any club in the upstart AFL, so expected Green Bay would blow out Kansas City.

The first half of Super Bowl I was competitive, as the Chiefs out-gained the Packers in total yards, 181–164, to come within 14–10 at halftime. But Green Bay safety Willie Wood’s 50-yard interception return early in the third quarter sparked the Packers to score 21 unanswered points in the second half. Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr, who completed 16 of 23 passes for 250 yards and two touchdowns, with 1 interception, was named MVP.

It is the only Super Bowl to have been simulcast in the United States by two networks: NBC had the rights to nationally televise AFL games, while CBS held the rights to broadcast NFL games; both networks were allowed to televise the game. The first Super Bowl’s entertainment largely consisted of college bands, instead of featuring popular singers and musicians as in more recent Super Bowls.

Google-a-Day asks a question about arthropods:

What type of arthropod appendage is comprised of a single series of segments attached end-to-end, rather than branching into two?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in Whitewater brings mostly cloudy skies and a high of nineteen. Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:45 PM, for 9h 22m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 39.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a public information meeting today from 4:30 to 6 PM on the reconstruction of George Street.

It’s Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer’s birthday:

The son and grandson of ministers, Schweitzer studied theology and philosophy at the universities of Strasbourg, Paris and Berlin. After working as a pastor, he entered medical school in 1905 with the dream of becoming a missionary in Africa. Schweitzer was also an acclaimed concert organist who played professional engagements to earn money for his education. By the time he received his M.D. in 1913, the overachieving Schweitzer had published several books, including the influential The Quest for the Historical Jesus and a book on the composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

Medical degree in hand, Schweitzer and his wife, Helene Bresslau, moved to French Equatorial Africa where he founded a hospital at Lambarene (modern-day Gabon). When World War I broke out, the German-born Schweitzers were sent to a French internment camp as prisoners of war. Released in 1918, they returned to Lambarene in 1924. Over the next three decades, Schweitzer made frequent visits to Europe to lecture on culture and ethics. His philosophy revolved around the concept of what he called “reverence for life”–the idea that all life must be respected and loved, and that humans should enter into a personal, spiritual relationship with the universe and all its creations. This reverence for life, according to Schweitzer, would naturally lead humans to live a life of service to others.

Schweitzer won widespread praise for putting his uplifting theory into practice at his hospital in Africa, where he treated many patients with leprosy and the dreaded African sleeping sickness. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1952, Schweitzer used his $33,000 award to start a leprosarium at Lambarene. From the early 1950s until his death in 1965, Schweitzer spoke and wrote tirelessly about his opposition to nuclear tests and nuclear weapons, adding his voice to those of fellow Nobelists Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell.

Google-a-Day asks a question about classification:

Under modern classification systems, in what clade will you find birds?