Good morning, Whitewater.
A new year begins in the Whippet City, with cloudy skies, perhaps a few flurries, and a high of twenty-five. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:31, for 9h 06m 20s of daytime each day. The moon is a waning gibbous with 56.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
I’ve made a change to the cartoon feature here at FW. Before, only Wednesday featured a cartoon, but I have replaced the weekly cartoon with a widget on the right sidebar that, when clicked, will produce a daily cartoon. The image on the sidebar stays the same, but clicking it shows a larger, daily cartoon from the popular, professional cartoonist Mark Anderson. I’m a big fan of his work and I know that many of you are, too (thanks for your messages about these cartoons).
On this day in 1946, an American solider has an unexpected encounter:
An American soldier accepts the surrender of about 20 Japanese soldiers who only discovered that the war was over by reading it in the newspaper.
On the island of Corregidor, located at the mouth of Manila Bay, a lone soldier on detail for the American Graves Registration was busy recording the makeshift graves of American soldiers who had lost their lives fighting the Japanese. He was interrupted when approximately 20 Japanese soldiers approached him—literally waving a white flag. They had been living in an underground tunnel built during the war and learned that their country had already surrendered when one of them ventured out in search of water and found a newspaper announcing Japan’s defeat.
On this day in 1836, Michigan forms a 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]