Good morning, Whitewater.
The end of the work week will be sunny with a high of seventy-five. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset 8:36, for 15h 20m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea begins:
The Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 19–20, 1944) was a decisive naval battle of World War II which eliminated the Imperial Japanese Navy’s ability to conduct large-scale carrier actions. It took place during the United States’ amphibious invasion of the Mariana Islands during the Pacific War. The battle was the last of five major “carrier-versus-carrier” engagements between American and Japanese naval forces, and involved elements of the United States Navy‘s Fifth Fleet as well as ships and land-based aircraft from the Imperial Japanese Navy‘s Mobile Fleet and nearby island garrisons.
The aerial theatre of the battle was nicknamed the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot by American aviators for the severely disproportional loss ratio inflicted upon Japanese aircraft by American pilots and anti-aircraft gunners.[2] During a debriefing after the first two air battles a pilot from USS Lexington remarked “Why, hell, it was just like an old-time turkey shoot down home!”[3] The outcome is generally attributed to American improvements in pilot and crew training and tactics, war technology (including the top-secret anti-aircraft proximity fuze), and ship and aircraft design.[N 1][N 2] Although at the time the battle appeared to be a missed opportunity to destroy the Japanese fleet, the Imperial Japanese Navy had lost the bulk of its carrier air strength and would never recover.[1] During the course of the battle, American submarines torpedoed and sank two of the largest Japanese fleet carriers taking part in the battle.[4]:331–333
This was the largest carrier-to-carrier battle in history.
Today in Juneteenth:
By 1865, there were an estimated 250,000 slaves in Texas.[7] As news of end of the war moved slowly, it did not reach Texas until May 1865, and the Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not surrender until June 2.[7] On June 18, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston Island with 2,000 federal troops to occupy Texas on behalf of the federal government.[6] On June 19, standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, Granger read aloud the contents of “General Order No. 3”, announcing the total emancipation of slaves:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.[8]
Former slaves in Galveston rejoiced in the streets after the announcement, although in the years afterward many struggled to work through the changes against resistance of whites. But, the following year, freedmen organized the first of what became annual celebrations of Juneteenth in Texas.[8] Barred in some cities from using public parks because of state-sponsored segregation of facilities, across parts of Texas, freed people pooled their funds to purchase land to hold their celebrations, such as Houston‘s Emancipation Park, Mexia‘s Booker T. Washington Park, and Emancipation Park in Austin.[7][8]
For more about the holiday, see The Hidden History Of Juneteenth.
Here’s the final puzzle in this week’s Puzzability series, Make Room for Dad:
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This Week’s Game — June 15-19
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Make Room for Dad
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We’re mixing it up with pop this Father’s Day. For each day this week, we started with a word or phrase, added the three letters in DAD, and rearranged all the letters to get a new phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.
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Example:
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Overweight; heroically turned the tide from bad to good
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Answer:
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Heavyset; saved the day
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What to Submit:
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Submit both pieces, with the shorter one first (as “Heavyset; saved the day” in the example), for your answer.
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Friday, June 19
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