Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-four. Sunrise today was at 5:16 AM, and sunset will be at 8:37 AM. It’s a waxing gibbous moon with 89% of the its visible disk illuminated.

Multiply all the pizza sales in Russia by all the deliverymen and all the ways to observe them and one’s bound to learn of at least one incident like this:

On this day in 1975, a summer blockbuster debuts:

…Jaws, a film directed by Steven Spielberg that made countless viewers afraid to go into the water, opens in theaters. The story of a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town became an instant blockbuster and the highest-grossing film in movie history until it was bested by 1977’s Star Wars. Jaws was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Picture category and took home three Oscars, for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score and Best Sound. The film, a breakthrough for director Spielberg, then 27 years old, spawned three sequels.

The film starred Roy Scheider as principled police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as a marine biologist named Matt Hooper and Robert Shaw as a grizzled fisherman called Quint. It was set in the fictional beach town of Amity, and based on a best-selling novel, released in 1973, by Peter Benchley. Subsequent water-themed Benchley bestsellers also made it to the big screen, including The Deep (1977).

On 6.20.1911, a Wisconsin labor strike:

1911 – Italian Working Men Strike
On this date Italian working men, employed by Andrus Asphalt Company in Madison, went on strike and threatened to kill their foreman if they did not receive an increase in wages for laying pavement. The men demanded a 25-cent (a day) raise, from $1.75 to $2.00. To learn more about strikes and the labor movement visit our Birth of the Labor Movement page in Turning Points. [Source: Bishops to Bootleggers: A Biographical Guide to Resurrection Cemetery, pg. 184]

Puzzability has a series about summer, running from 6.17 to 6.21:

Summer Is a-Comin’ In
We’ll be welcoming in the new season every day this week. For each day, we started with a word, added the six letters in the word SUMMER, and rearranged all the letters to get a new phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.

Example:
Fish tank scum; church basement flea market-style event

Answer:
Algae; rummage sale

Here’s the puzzle for Thursday:

Pertaining to plants; 1 for hydrogen, 2 for helium, and so on.

Good morning.

Mid-week in Whitewater will be sunny and mild, with a high of seventy-five.

Whitewater’s Tech Park Board meets this morning at 8 AM.

Seniors in the Park offers a free showing of Searching for Sugar Man today at 12:30 PM at Starin Park’s Community Building.

On this day in 1917, a change of name for the British royal family:

…during the third year of World War I, Britain’s King George V orders the British royal family to dispense with the use of German titles and surnames, changing the surname of his own family, the decidedly Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor….

With the outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914, strong anti-German feeling within Britain caused sensitivity among the royal family about its German roots. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, also a grandson of Queen Victoria, was the king’s cousin; the queen herself was German. As a result, on June 19, 1917, the king decreed that the royal surname was thereby changed from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor….

Puzzability has a new series about summer, running from 6.17 to 6.21:

Summer Is a-Comin’ In
We’ll be welcoming in the new season every day this week. For each day, we started with a word, added the six letters in the word SUMMER, and rearranged all the letters to get a new phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.

Example:
Fish tank scum; church basement flea market-style event

Answer:
Algae; rummage sale

Here’s the puzzle for Wednesday:

Attractive, as a wench; ability to perform a familiar movement without conscious thought.

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-two.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On 6.18.1812, America goes to war:

The day after the Senate followed the House of Representatives in voting to declare war against Great Britain, President James Madison signs the declaration into law–and the War of 1812 begins. The American war declaration, opposed by a sizable minority in Congress, had been called in response to the British economic blockade of France, the induction of American seaman into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of hostile Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier. A faction of Congress known as the “War Hawks” had been advocating war with Britain for several years and had not hidden their hopes that a U.S. invasion of Canada might result in significant territorial land gains for the United States….

Puzzability has a new series about summer, running from 6.17 to 6.21:

Summer Is a-Comin’ In
We’ll be welcoming in the new season every day this week. For each day, we started with a word, added the six letters in the word SUMMER, and rearranged all the letters to get a new phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.

Example:
Fish tank scum; church basement flea market-style event

Answer:
Algae; rummage sale

Here’s the puzzle for Tuesday:

Dense Italian ice cream that’s a summer treat; repasts featuring only the finest ingredients.

Good morning.

Whitewater’s week begins with a sunny day with a high of eighty-six, and a one-in-five chance of isolated thunderstorms in the afternoon.

Whitewater’s LIbrary Board meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1972, five burglars – but not just any five – were arrested:

In the early morning of June 17, 1972, five men are arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate, an office-hotel-apartment complex in Washington, D.C. In their possession were burglary tools, cameras and film, and three pen-size tear gas guns. At the scene of the crime, and in rooms the men rented at the Watergate, sophisticated electronic bugging equipment was found. Three of the men were Cuban exiles, one was a Cuban American, and the fifth was James W. McCord, Jr., a former CIA agent. That day, the suspects, who said they were “anti-communists,” were charged with felonious burglary and possession of implements of crime.

On June 18, however, it was revealed that James McCord was the salaried security coordinator for President Richard Nixon’s reelection committee. The next day, E. Howard Hunt, Jr., a former White House aide, was linked to the five suspects. In July, G. Gordon Liddy, finance counsel for the Committee for the Re-election of the President, was also implicated as an accomplice. In August, President Nixon announced that a White House investigation of the Watergate break-in had concluded that administration officials were not involved. In September, Liddy, Hunt, McCord, and the four Cubans were indicted by a federal grand jury on eight counts of breaking into and illegally bugging the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

In September and October, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post uncovered evidence of illegal political espionage carried out by the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President, including the existence of a secret fund kept for the purpose and the existence of political spies hired by the committee. Despite these reports, and a growing call for a Watergate investigation on Capitol Hill, Richard Nixon was reelected president in November 1972 in a landslide victory.

Puzzability has a new series for us, running from 6.17 to 6.21:

Summer Is a-Comin’ In
We’ll be welcoming in the new season every day this week. For each day, we started with a word, added the six letters in the word SUMMER, and rearranged all the letters to get a new phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.

Example:
Fish tank scum; church basement flea market-style event

Answer:
Algae; rummage sale

Here’s the puzzle for Monday:

Preserving with a VCR; classic Wrigley’s product.

Good morning.

Whitewater has a beautiful Sunday ahead, with sunny skies, a high of eighty-three, and light winds from the northwest at 5 to 10 m.p.h. Sunrise was at 5:16 a.m., and sunset will be at 8:36 p.m. The Moon is in its first quarter.

Today in 1884, a first for America:

On this day in 1884, the first roller coaster in America opens at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York. Known as a switchback railway, it was the brainchild of LaMarcus Thompson, traveled approximately six miles per hour and cost a nickel to ride. The new entertainment was an instant success and by the turn of the century there were hundreds of roller coasters around the country.

In Wisconsin history, on this day in 1845,

First [Superficially] Free Public School Opened in Wisconsin
On this date the first free public school in Wisconsin was opened in Southport (now Kenosha). Michael Frank, a member of the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature, introduced bills authorizing the establishment of a Wisconsin public school system in 1843, 1844, and 1845. These attempts were failures so Frank sponsored a bill authorizing Southport to establish a public school supported by property tax dollars. [Source: Wisconsin Mosaic]