Daily Bread for 7.15.15

Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in the Whippet City will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-eight. Sunrise is 5:30 and sunset 8:31, for 15h 00m 41s of daytime. We’ve a new moon.

On this day in 1971, Pres. Nixon tells America about a trip that he has planned:

During a live television and radio broadcast, President Richard Nixon stuns the nation by announcing that he will visit communist China the following year. The statement marked a dramatic turning point in U.S.-Chinese relations….

Following the advice of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Nixon hoped to use the promise of closer relations with the United States to convince the Chinese to put increased pressure on North Vietnam–a Chinese ally–to reach an acceptable peace settlement in the war. Other factors encouraging the visit included the constant demands of U.S. businesses for diplomatic relations with China so that its markets would open to American trade and investment; Nixon’s need for a dramatic act to revive his sagging popularity with the American people; and Kissinger’s hope that closer relations with China would make the Soviet Union more receptive to U.S. diplomatic initiatives. It was with these ideas in mind that Nixon announced on July 15, 1971, that he was going to make a “journey for peace” to communist China in May 1972, at the invitation of the Chinese government.

A Google a Day asks a history question:

What nation was the source of the missiles found aboard the Yemen-bound unflagged freighter intercepted by the Spanish SPS Navarra on December 9, 2002?