Good morning.
Wednesday will be rainy with a high of fifty-three, but with falling daytime temperatures into the forties by the afternoon.
Welcome, new readers. Yesterday was a big day for new visitors. Thanks very much for stopping by. To longtime readers, my thanks, too. Each year I’ve been writing has seen solid growth from earlier years. People write, I think, simply because they believe in their efforts, but readers should be, and in my case truly are, much appreciated.
Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission meets tonight at 6 PM.
So what happened in history today?
On this day in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was first elected president of the United States:
The canvass for the Presidency of the United States terminated last evening, in all the States of the Union, under the revised regulation of Congress, passed in 1845, and the result, by the vote of New-York, is placed beyond question at once. It elects ABRAHAM LINCOLN of Illinois, President, and HANNIBAL HAMLIN of Maine, Vice-President of the United States, for four years, from the 4th March next, directly by the People.
It’s also the birthday, from 1860, of John Philip Sousa:
John Philip Sousa did not invent the musical genre he came to personify, but even if no other composer had ever written a single piece in the same style, the standard repertoire of the American marching band would be little changed. The instantly recognizable sound of Sousa’s timeless pieces—”The Washington Post” (1889), “The Liberty Bell” (1893), and “Stars And Stripes Forever” (1896)—is permanently etched in many Americans’ memory banks. One of the most popular, prolific and important American composers of all time, John Philip Sousa—”the March King”—was born in Washington, D.C., on this day in 1854
Here’s the Liberty Bell March:
On this day in 1837, Wisconsin gets a temporary capital city in Iowa:
1837 – Burlington, Iowa Selected as Temporary Capital
On this date Burlington, Iowa was chosen as a temporary capital of the Wisconsin Territory. A year earlier, legislators offered a bill making Madison the capital with a temporary capital in Dubuque until which time a permanent building could be constructed in Madison. Legislators also proposed the City of Belmont as a temporary capital. One month later, on December 12th, a fire destroyed the two-story temporary capital in Burlington. The new legislature moved its headquarters to the Webber and Remey’s store in Burlington where they conducted government affairs until June 1838.[Source: Wisconsin Legislature]
Scientific American‘s daily trivia question asks about fatal diseases. (Clicking on the question leads to its answer.)