Daily Bread for 11.17.14

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday will be partly cloudy with a high of seventeen degrees (corrected from an earlier entry mistakenly listing the high as seven degrees). Sunrise is 6:50 AM and sunset 4:29 PM, with 9h 39m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with twenty-three percent of its disk illuminated.

Articles of Confederation and
Perpetual Union…
Williamsburg: Va.
Printed by Alexander Purdie [1777].
Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.

On this day in 1777, Congress submits the Articles of Confederation to the states for ratification (having been adopted by Congress two days earlier):

The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, was a document signed amongst the 13 original colonies that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution.[1] Its drafting by a committee appointed by the Second Continental Congress began on July 12, 1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification in late 1777. The formal ratification by all 13 states was completed in early 1781. Even when not yet ratified, the Articles provided domestic and international legitimacy for the Continental Congress to direct the American Revolutionary War, conduct diplomacy with Europe and deal with territorial issues and Native American relations. Nevertheless, the weakness of the government created by the Articles became a matter of concern for key nationalists. On March 4, 1789, general government under the Articles was replaced with the federal government under the U.S. Constitution.[2][3] The new Constitution provided for a much stronger federal government with a chief executive (the president), courts, and taxing powers.

Google-a-Day asks a geography question:

On the flag of Angola, the symbol with a half circle shape is part of three symbols, collectively chosen to relate to the flag of what former county?