Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be colder than yesterday, with a high of forty. We’ll have another breezy day, with gusts of winds for today reaching to 25 mph. Sunrise today is 6:51 AM, and sunset 4:29 PM. The moon for November 18th is in a waning gibbous phase with 99% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Alcohol & Licensing Committee meets at 6:30 PM tonight.
On this day in 1883, new modes of travel make necessary the use of time zones (‘Standard Railway Time‘):
At exactly noon on this day, American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times. The bold move was emblematic of the power shared by the railroad companies.
The need for continental time zones stemmed directly from the problems of moving passengers and freight over the thousands of miles of rail line that covered North America by the 1880s. Since human beings had first begun keeping track of time, they set their clocks to the local movement of the sun. Even as late as the 1880s, most towns in the U.S. had their own local time, generally based on “high noon,” or the time when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. As railroads began to shrink the travel time between cities from days or months to mere hours, however, these local times became a scheduling nightmare. Railroad timetables in major cities listed dozens of different arrival and departure times for the same train, each linked to a different local time zone.
Efficient rail transportation demanded a more uniform time-keeping system. Rather than turning to the federal governments of the United States and Canada to create a North American system of time zones, the powerful railroad companies took it upon themselves to create a new time code system. The companies agreed to divide the continent into four time zones; the dividing lines adopted were very close to the ones we still use today.
Most Americans and Canadians quickly embraced their new time zones, since railroads were often their lifeblood and main link with the rest of the world. However, it was not until 1918 that Congress officially adopted the railroad time zones and put them under the supervision of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
On 11.18.1930, there’s a raid in Beloit:
1930 – Beloit Area Home Raided
On this date federal agents and county deputies raided Otto Matschke’s home, north of Beloit, and seized an illegal still and 300 gallons of contraband moonshine. [Source: Janesville Gazette November 19, 1930, p.1]
I’ve linked to puzzles from Puzzability before, and I’ll bring them back today. Their new series is called First Editions:
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This Week’s Game — November 18-22
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First Editions
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This week, we’re summarizing books in just one word. Each day’s answer is a book title whose initial letters spell a three- or four-letter word. The day’s clue includes information about the book and a clue to the word.
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Example:
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Joseph Heller novel about a professor who has a chance to be the first Jewish Secretary of State, if he can just get that bandanna out of his mouth
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Answer:
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Good as Gold (GAG)
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What to Submit:
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Submit the book title (as “Good as Gold” in the example) for your answer.
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Monday, November 18
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