Good morning.

Wednesday brings a day of gradual clearing, a high of twenty-one, and a wind chill between zero and ten. There will be 9h 7m of sunlight, 10h 11m of daylight, with a waning gibbous moon.

On this day in 1905, the Russian surrender to the Japanese at Port Arthur was the first of a string of Japanese victories in the war between those two nations:

During the Russo-Japanese War, Port Arthur, the Russian naval base in China, falls to Japanese naval forces under Admiral Heihachiro Togo. It was the first in a series of defeats that by June turned the tide of the imperial conflict irrevocably against Russia.

In February 1904, following a Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launched a surprise naval attack on Port Arthur, decimating the Russian fleet. In the subsequent fighting, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians, who underestimated the military potential of its non-Western opponent.

In January 1905, the strategic naval base of Port Arthur fell to the Japanese; in March, Russian troops were defeated at Shenyang, China, by Japanese Field Marshal Iwao Oyama; and in May, the Russian Baltic fleet under Admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski was destroyed by Admiral Togo’s fleet near the Tsushima Islands. These three crucial defeats convinced Russia that further resistance against Japan’s imperial designs on East Asia was hopeless, and in August 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt mediated a peace treaty at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Japan emerged from the conflict as the first modern non-Western world power and set its sights on greater imperial expansion. For Russia, however, the disastrous performance in the war was one of the immediate causes of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Pres. Roosevelt, by the way, received the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for his role as mediator.

On 1.2.1918, Wisconsinites left for war in Europe:

1918 – Wisconsin Troops Depart for Europe
On this date the Wisconsin 127th and 128th Infantries departed for France from their training facility at Camp Arthur in Waco, Texas. Initially, these divisions were assigned to construct depots and facilities for troops that would follow. On May 18, they were assigned to the frontline at Belmont in the Alsace where they faced three German divisions. In the following months, 368 troops were killed, wounded or missing. Ironically, their enemy, native Alsatians, spoke German and the Wisconsin troops were better able to communicate with them than their French allies.

Google-a-Day asks a history question: “At what school did the man who was the great grandson of one president and the grandson of another president become a history professor in the 1870’s?”

Happy New Year.

We’ll start off 2013 with a day of sunny skies and a high of only thirteen degrees.

On this day in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation took effect.

On 1.1.1836, a new territory:

1836 – Wisconsin Territory Formed
On this date the Wisconsin Territory was formed by an act of the Michigan Legislature. Brown County lost a portion of its original possession north of the Menominee River but gained the remainder of the eastern peninsula. Territorial officials were sworn on July 4th of the same year.  [Source: Sussex-Lisbon Area Historical Society]

Google-a-Day asks a history question:  “Which of Mary Stuart’s conspirators devised the plot to murder her cousin who, at the time, occupied the throne of England?”

From CNN, here’s a happy-panda-and-ball video to start the year:

Good morning.

Whitewater’s last day of 2012 will be partly sunny with a high of twenty-seven, with temperatures falling in the afternoon.

On this day in 1946, long after actual fighting had ended, as a formality Pres. Truman proclaimed an end to the Second World War:

The state of hostilities, a term covering the period of actual fighting and one used in defining the duration of many war-time statues, alone was involved in the President’s proclamation, but this served to terminate immediately eighteen emergency laws and scheduled for expiration six months from now or later provisions of thirty-three other statutes.

End Set for Farm Price Support

One effect of the official ending of the period of hostilities will be to reduce the consumers’ tax bill by $1,500,000,000 when excise taxes on scores of luxury items will revert to peacetime levels on July 1, 1947, through lapsing of provisions of revenue laws, unless Congress continues them in the meantime.

It will also end automatically at the end of 1948 wartime price supports for agricultural products. This program, it had been estimated by officials, might be worth between $1,000,000,000 and $1,500,000,000 to the farmers by that time.

On this day in 1967,

1967 – Green Bay Packers Triumph in “Ice Bowl”
On this date the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys played in what many consider to be the greatest game in NFL history – The Ice Bowl. With the thermometer dipping to a shocking 13 below zero and a wind chill of minus 46, Bart Starr scored the winning touchdown from the 1-yard line with 13 seconds remaining, sealing a record third straight championship for the Packers, their fifth in seven years. Green Bay defeated Dallas, 21-17, to win the NFL Championship. [Source: Packers.com]

Google-a-Day poses a geography question: “Chapter 10 of “Geography of India” by Prithvish Nag, Smita Sengupta discusses what geographical feature?”

Good morning.

We’ve a sunny and chilly day before us in Whitewater. The high will be twenty-two, and there will be 9h 5m of sunlight and 10h 9m.

Almost a century ago, on 12.30.1916, the controversial Rasputin was murdered in Russia:

Sometime over the course of the night and the early morning of December 29-30, 1916, Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, a self-proclaimed holy man, is murdered by Russian nobles eager to end his influence over the royal family.

Rasputin, a Siberian-born muzhik, or peasant, who underwent a religious conversion as a teenager and proclaimed himself a healer with the ability to predict the future, won the favor of Czar Nicholas II and Czarina Alexandra through his ability to stop the bleeding of their hemophiliac son, Alexei, in 1908. From then on, though he was widely criticized for his lechery and drunkenness, Rasputin exerted a powerful influence on the ruling family of Russia, infuriating nobles, church orthodoxy, and peasants alike. He particularly influenced the czarina, and was rumored to be her lover. When Nicholas departed to lead Russian forces in World War I, Rasputin effectively ruled the country through Alexandra, contributing to the already-existing corruption and disorder of Romanov Russia.

Fearful of Rasputin’s growing power (among other things, it was believed by some that he was plotting to make a separate peace with the Germans), a group of nobles, led by Prince Felix Youssupov, the husband of the czar’s niece, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Nicholas’s first cousin, lured Rasputin to Youssupov Palace on the night of December 29, 1916.

First, Rasputin’s would-be killers gave the monk food and wine laced with cyanide. When he failed to react to the poison, they shot him at close range, leaving him for dead. A short time later, however, Rasputin revived and attempted to escape from the palace grounds, whereupon his assailants shot him again and beat him viciously. Finally, they bound Rasputin, still miraculously alive, and tossed him into a freezing river. His body was discovered several days later and the two main conspirators, Youssupov and Pavlovich were exiled.

In the Wisconsin of 1922, another episode in the losing battle of Prohibition:

1922 – Authorities Confiscate Illegal Alcohol
On this date authorities in Madison confiscated 1,200 gallons of “mash” and fifteen gallons of moonshine from the home of a suspected bootlegger. As the illegal liquor trade flourished in Madison’s Greenbush neighborhood during Prohibition, two rival gangs, one on Regent Street and the other located on Milton Street, fought to gain control until the “Rum War” erupted among these factions in 1923. [Source: Bishops to Bootleggers: A Biographical Guide to Resurrection Cemetery, p.189]

Google-a-Day gives us a sports & geography question: “The renowned football, basketball and baseball player and coach who stated, “It is how you show up at the showdown that counts,” was born in what southern state?

Good morning.

It’s snow for Saturday in Whitewater, mostly in the morning, with only a slight accumulation. Today will top out at twenty-nine degrees, with northwest winds 5 to 10 mph.

Here we go… Zeitgeist 2012: The Year in Review:

In our own history on this day in 1879,

1879 – General William “Billy” Mitchell Born
On this date aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell was born in Nice, France. Mitchell grew up in Milwaukee and attended Racine College. During World War I, Mitchell was the first American airman to fly over enemy lines.  He also led many air attacks in France and Germany.

Upon return to the U.S., he advocated the creation of a separate Air Force. Much to the dislike of A.T. Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, and other contemporaries, Mitchell asserted that the airplane had rendered the battleship obsolete, and attention should be shifted to developing military air power. Mitchell’s out-spokenness resulted in his being court martialed for insubordination. He was sentenced to five years suspension of rank without pay.

General Douglas MacArthur — an old Milwaukee friend — was a judge in Mitchell’s case and voted against his court martial. Mitchell’s ideas for developing military air power were not implemented until long after his death. In 1946 Congress created a medal in his honor, the General “Billy” Mitchell Award. Milwaukee’s airport, General Mitchell International Airport, is named after him. [Source: American Airpower Biography]

Google-a-Day is looking for the name of a pet: “What was the name of the pet that often traveled with the artist of “Tuna Fishing”?”