Good morning.
Tuesday will be a day of thunderstorms and a high of seventy for Whitewater. We’ll have rainfall accumulations between a quarter and half of an inch.
On this day in 1754, Lt. Col. George Washington finds himself at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War:
…a 22-year-old lieutenant colonel of the Virginia militia named George Washington successfully defeats a party of French and Indian scouts in southwest Pennsylvania as Virginia attempts to lay claim to the territory for its own settlers. The action snowballed into a world war and began the military career of the first American commander in chief.
The Ohio Valley had long been a contested territory among French Canadians, various Indian groups and the British colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia. When the French began to establish fortifications along the river and refused Virginia’s written demand that they depart, Virginia’s governor, Robert Dinwiddie, dispatched Washington to complete and defend a Virginian fort at the forks of the Ohio.
Upon their arrival, Washington discovered that a scouting party led by the French ensign, Joseph Coulon de Jumonville was nearby. Fearing that Jumonville was planning an attack, Washington struck first, successfully ambushing the small party. In one of history’s murkier moments, Jumonville was murdered by Washington’s Indian ally, Tanaghrisson, while the monolingual Washington struggled to interrogate the French-speaking Canadian….
Google-a-Day poses a history question: “What was the title of the father of the first child born to the sister of the British monarch who ascended the throne in February 1952?”