Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of thirteen. Sunrise is 6:22 and sunset is 5:49, for 11h 27m 05s of daytime. We’ve a full moon today.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets today at 6:30 PM.

Google has a doodle today in honor of Momofuku Ando, inventor of instant noodles:

On this day 1946, Winston Churchill delivers his ‘Iron Curtain’ Speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. (Churchill had entitled the speech Sinews of Peace, but it’s his reference to an iron curtain that stuck.) The New York Times reported on the speech:

Fulton, Mo., March 5 – A fraternal association between the British Empire and the United States was advocated here today by Winston Churchill to stem “the expansive and proselytizing tendencies” of the Soviet Union.

Introduced by President Truman at Westminster College, Great Britain’s wartime Prime Minister asserted that a mere balance of power in the world today would be too narrow a margin and would only offer “temptations to a trial of strength.”

On the contrary, he added that the English-speaking peoples must maintain an overwhelming preponderance of power on their side until “the highroads of the future will be clear, not only for our time but for a century to come.”

Says Curtain Divides Europe

Mr. Churchill painted a dark picture of post-war Europe, on which “an iron curtain has descended across the Continent” from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.

Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia and Bucharest are all being subjected to increasing pressure and control from Moscow, he said, adding:

“This is certainly not the liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it, one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.”

See, full text of Churchill’s speech to Westminster College.

On this day in 1935, a silver magnate dies:

1935 – Elizabeth “Baby Doe” McCourt Dies
On this date, the controversial wife of Horace (H.A.W.) Tabor, silver mine owner during the 19th century Colorado gold and silver booms, died. Born Elizabeth Bondeul McCourt in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1854, she was first married to Harvey Doe, Jr. of Oshkosh but in 1880 divorced him on the grounds of adultery. She then moved to Colorado where she married Leadville’s silver king, Horace Tabor. Despite great wealth, she died penniless and alone in Leadville: she froze to death in a cabin near the famous Matchless mine, which in its heyday had produced $10,000 worth of silver ore per day. Elizabeth and Horace are the subject of an American opera, “The Ballad of Baby Doe”….

Here’s today’s game in Puzzability‘s Vegging in series:

This Week’s Game — March 2-6

Vegging In

We’re dishing up a healthy serving every day this week. For each day, we’ve taken the name of a vegetable, added a letter, and scrambled all the letters to get a new word. The answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the vegetable followed by the new word.

Example:

Deep-dish meal with a vegetable base

Answer:

Escarole casserole

What to Submit:

Submit the phrase, with the vegetable first (as “Escarole casserole” in the example), for your answer.

Thursday, March 5

One of a group of 17th-century Englishmen who were strictly religious about their choice of vegetable

Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of sixteen. Sunrise is 6:24 and sunset 5:48, for 11h 24m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1789, government under the Constitution begins:

The first session of the U.S. Congress is held in New York City as the U.S. Constitution takes effect. However, of the 22 senators and 59 representatives called to represent the 11 states who had ratified the document, only nine senators and 13 representatives showed up to begin negotiations for its amendment….

As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. The Constitution was thus sent to the state legislatures, and beginning on December 7, five states–Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut–ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document for its failure to reserve powers not delegated by the Constitution to the states and its lack of constitutional protection for such basic political rights as freedom of speech, religion, and the press, and the right to bear arms.

In February 1788, a compromise was reached in which Massachusetts and other states agreed to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would immediately be adopted. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, making it binding, and government under the U.S. Constitution was scheduled to begin on March 4, 1789.

On September 25, 1789, after several months of debate, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution–the Bill of Rights–and sent them to the states for ratification. This action led to the eventual ratification of the Constitution by the last of the 13 original colonies: North Carolina and Rhode Island.

Here’s the Wednesday game in Puzzability‘s Vegging In series:

This Week’s Game — March 2-6

Vegging In

We’re dishing up a healthy serving every day this week. For each day, we’ve taken the name of a vegetable, added a letter, and scrambled all the letters to get a new word. The answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the vegetable followed by the new word.

Example:

Deep-dish meal with a vegetable base

Answer:

Escarole casserole

What to Submit:

Submit the phrase, with the vegetable first (as “Escarole casserole” in the example), for your answer.

Wednesday, March 4

Coiffures featuring vegetable adornments

Good morning, Whitewater.

We may have our last snowfall of the season today. We will likely get about an inch of snow, mixed with sleet and freezing rain. The high for today will be thirty-five. Sunrise is 6:25 and sunset 5:47, for 11h 21m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1931, Pres. Hoover signs a bill about a particular song:

President Herbert Hoover signs a congressional act making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official national anthem of the United States.

On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key composed the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner” after witnessing the massive overnight British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. Key, an American lawyer, watched the siege while under detainment on a British ship and penned the famous words after observing with awe that Fort McHenry’s flag survived the 1,800-bomb assault.

After circulating as a handbill, the patriotic lyrics were published in a Baltimore newspaper on September 20, 1814. Key’s words were later set to the tune of “To Anacreon in Heaven,” a popular English song. Throughout the 19th century, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was regarded as the national anthem by most branches of the U.S. armed forces and other groups, but it was not until 1916, and the signing of an executive order by President Woodrow Wilson, that it was formally designated as such. In March 1931, Congress passed an act confirming Wilson’s presidential order, and on March 3 President Hoover signed it into law.

Here’s the Tuesday, vegetable-themed game from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — March 2-6

Vegging In

We’re dishing up a healthy serving every day this week. For each day, we’ve taken the name of a vegetable, added a letter, and scrambled all the letters to get a new word. The answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the vegetable followed by the new word.

Example:

Deep-dish meal with a vegetable base

Answer:

Escarole casserole

What to Submit:

Submit the phrase, with the vegetable first (as “Escarole casserole” in the example), for your answer.

Tuesday, March 3

Vegetable-shaped clothing patch applied using heat