FREE WHITEWATER

Daily Bread for 8.16.16

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 6:03 AM and sunset 7:53 PM, for 13h 50m 05s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

Map of the 1858 trans-Atlantic cable route

                                                                       Map of the 1858 trans-Atlantic cable route

On this day in 1858, the first transatlantic telegraph message was successfully transmitted:

On August 16, 1858 the first message sent via the cable, other than technical messages sent by the electricians setting up the system, was, “Europe and America are united by telegraphy. Glory to God in the highest; on earth, peace and good will toward men,” sent from England.[10][11]Queen Victoria then sent a telegram of congratulation to President James Buchanan at his summer residence in the Bedford Springs Hotel in Pennsylvania and expressed a hope that it would prove “an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded on their common interest and reciprocal esteem.” The President responded that, “it is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle. May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world.”[12] The messages were hard to decipher – Queen Victoria’s message of 98 words took sixteen hours to send.[13]

These messages engendered an outburst of enthusiasm. The next morning a grand salute of 100 guns resounded in New York City, the streets were decorated with flags, the bells of the churches were rung, and at night the city was illuminated.[14]

JigZone‘s Tuesday puzzle is of a marina:

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