Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday in town will be partly cloudy and windy with a high of fifty. Sunrise is 7 AM and sunset 7:04 PM, for 12h 04m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 68.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1776, Britain leaves Boston:
During the evening of March 4, American Brigadier General John Thomas, under orders from Washington, secretly led a force of 800 soldiers and 1,200 workers to Dorchester Heights and began fortifying the area. To cover the sound of the construction, American cannons, besieging Boston from another location, began a noisy bombardment of the outskirts of the city. By the morning, more than a dozen cannons from Fort Ticonderoga had been brought within the Dorchester Heights fortifications. British General Sir William Howe hoped to use the British ships in Boston Harbor to destroy the American position, but a storm set in, giving the Americans ample time to complete the fortifications and set up their artillery. Realizing their position was now indefensible, 11,000 British troops and some 1,000 Loyalists departed Boston by ship on March 17, sailing to the safety of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The bloodless liberation of Boston by the Patriots brought an end to a hated eight-year British occupation of the city, known for such infamous events as the “Boston Massacre,” in which five colonists were shot and killed by British soldiers. The British fleet had first entered Boston Harbor on October 2, 1768, carrying 1,000 soldiers. Having soldiers living among them in tents on Boston Common–a standing army in 18th-century parlance–infuriated Bostonians.
For the victory, General Washington, commander of the Continental Army, was presented with the first medal ever awarded by the Continental Congress.
On this day in 1941, Milwaukee’s airport gets its current name:
1941 – General Mitchell Field Named
On this date Milwaukee’s airport was named to honor the city’s famous air-power pioneer, General William Mitchell. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride]
Today’s puzzle from JigZone is of a ski run: