Good morning, Whitewater.
The weekend begins with partly cloudy skies and a daytime high of fifty-one. Sunrise is 7:12 AM and sunset 6:08 PM. The moon is a waning crescent with twenty-four percent of its visible disk illuminated.
What’s an easy way to draw a circle freehand? Dave Hax has the answer:
On this day in 1867, America takes possession of Alaska:
Alaska Purchase
Financial difficulties in Russia, the desire to keep Alaska out of British hands, and the low profits of trade with Alaskan settlements all contributed to Russia’s willingness to sell its possessions in North America. At the instigation of U.S. Secretary of State William Seward, the United States Senate approved the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000. on August 1, 1867. This purchase was popularly known in the U.S. as “Seward’s Folly,”, “Seward’s Icebox,” or “Andrew Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden”, and was unpopular at the time, though the later discovery of gold and oil would show it to be a worthwhile one and be come the 49th state.
After Russian America was sold to the U.S., all the holdings of the Russian–American Company were liquidated.
The Department of Alaska (1867-1884)
The United States flag was raised on October 18, 1867 (now called Alaska Day). Changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, for residents, Friday, October 6, 1867 was followed by Friday, October 18, 1867—two Fridays in a row because of the date line shift.
During the Department era, from 1867 to 1884, Alaska was variously under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army (until 1877), the United States Department of the Treasury (from 1877 until 1879) and the U.S. Navy (from 1879 until 1884).
When Alaska was first purchased, most of its land remained unexplored. In 1865, Western Union laid a telegraph line across Alaska to the Bering Strait where it would connect, under water, with an Asian line. It also conducted the first scientific studies of the region and produced the first map of the entire Yukon River. The Alaska Commercial Company and the military also contributed to the growing exploration of Alaska in the last decades of the 19th century, building trading posts along the Interior’s many rivers.
On this day in 1967, demonstrators protest at UW-Madison:
1967 – Police and Student Activists Clash in Madison
On this date club-wielding Madison police joined campus police to break up a large anti-war demonstration [against Dow Chemical, maker of napalm] on the UW-Madison campus. Sixty-five people, including several officers, were treated for injuries. Thirteen student leaders were ordered expelled from school. State Attorney General Bronson La Follette criticized the police for using excessive brutality. [Source: They Marched Into Sunlight]