Good morning, Whitewater.
Saturday in town will be partly sunny with a high of seventy-eight. Sunrise is 5:21 AM and sunset 8:36 PM, for 15h 15m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 5.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Yesterday I posted a photo of an aurora on Jupiter, but NASA and the European Space Agency have a video recording, too, of that phenomenon on the solar system’s largest world:
On July 2, South Carolina reversed its position and voted for independence. In the Pennsylvania delegation, Dickinson and Robert Morris abstained, allowing the delegation to vote three-to-two in favor of independence. The tie in the Delaware delegation was broken by the timely arrival of Caesar Rodney, who voted for independence. The New York delegation abstained once again, since they were still not authorized to vote for independence, although they would be allowed to do so by the New York Provincial Congress a week later.[74] The resolution of independence had been adopted with twelve affirmative votes and one abstention. With this, the colonies had officially severed political ties with Great Britain.[75]
On this day in 1863, a lieutenant from Wisconsin records events from the second day of fighting at Gettysburg:
Fighting at Gettysburg began in the afternoon on July 2 and lasted until after dark as Union forces repulsed a series of attacks. That night, Union Major General George Meade held a council of leaders to decide what to do next. Lieutenant Frank Haskell, of Madison, was present when they voted to “allow the Rebel to come up and smash his head against [their position] to any reasonable extent he desired, as he had to-day. After some two hours the council dissolved, and the officers went their several ways.”