Good morning.
We’ll have a warm and mostly sunny Tuesday, with a high of eighty-four.
Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets today at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress appoints a committee:
…Congress selects Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert R. Livingston of New York to draft a declaration of independence.
Knowing Jefferson’s prowess with a pen, Adams urged him to author the first draft of the document, which was then carefully revised by Adams and Franklin before being given to Congress for review on June 28.
The revolutionary treatise began with reverberating prose:
When, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Congress would not tolerate the Committee of Five’s original language condemning Britain for introducing the slave trade to its American colonies as a cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty. Those distant people who never offended would have to wait another century and for another war before their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would begin to be recognized.
It’s Gene Wilder’s birthday:
1935 – Gene Wilder Born
On this date Gene Wilder (aka Jerome Silberman) was born in Milwaukee. Wilder graduated from Washington High School in Milwaukee in 1951. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1955. and studied judo, fencing, gymnastics and voice at the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, England. Wilder won the Clarence Derwent award for the Broadway play “The Complaisant Lover” in 1962. He continued to perform on Broadway in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1963), Dynamite Tonight (1964), and The White House (1964).Wilder made his film debut in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), then earned an Oscar nomination the following year as the accountant Leo Bloom in The Producers, the first of three films he made for writer-director Mel Brooks. Wilder is known for his work in such films as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), Blazing Saddles (1973), and Young Frankenstein (1974). After his second wife Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer, Wilder co-founded Gilda’s Club, a support group to raise awareness of the disease. [Source: Internet Movie Database]
Puzzablity has a new weekly theme for June 10-14: “Paternity Test
There’s a bit of a generation gap this Father’s Day week. Each day’s clue is a series of words, each with one letter replaced by a dash. Fill in the missing letters one way to get the first (or only) name of a famous father, real or fictional, then fill them in another way to get the name of a child of his.”
Example:
ADO-E / HO-SEFLY / PA-PER / CHE-K / CHE-RY
Answer:
ADOBE HORSEFLY PAUPER CHECK CHEERY
ADORE HOUSEFLY PAMPER CHEEK CHERRY
Bruce & Rumer (Willis)
Here’s June 11th’s puzzle:
BL-CKHEAD / ACCE-T / STUD-ED / CR-PT