Good morning, Whitewater.
Saturday in town will be rainy in the morning, giving way to partly cloudy skies and a daytime high of seventy degrees. Sunrise is 6:30 AM and sunset 7:11 PM, for 12h 41m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 59.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
NASA this week launched the OSIRIS-REx probe to take a sample from an asteroid and return that sample for study. The launch used an Atlas V rocket from the United Launch Alliance:
On this day in 1813, Oliver Perry defeats a Royal Navy Squadron at the Battle of Lake Erie:
On September 10, 1813, Perry’s command fought a successful fleet action against a squadron of the Royal Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie. It was at the outset of this battle that Perry famously said, “If a victory is to be gained, I will gain it.”[21] Initially, the exchange of gunfire favored the British. Perry’s flagship, the USS Lawrence, was so severely disabled in the encounter that the British commander, Robert Heriot Barclay, thought that Perry would surrender it, and sent a small boat to request that the American vessel pull down its flag. Faithful to the words of his battle flag, “DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP” (a paraphrase of the dying words of Captain James Lawrence, the ship’s namesake and Perry’s friend),[22][23] Perry, with Lawrence’s chaplain and purser as the remaining able crew, personally fired the final salvo,[24]and then had his men row him a half-mile (0.8 km) through heavy gunfire to transfer his command to USS Niagara.
Once aboard, Perry dispatched Niagara‘s commander, Captain Jesse Elliot, to bring the other schooners into closer action while he steered the Niagara toward the damaged British ships. Like Nelson’s Victory at Trafalgar, Niagara broke the opposing line. Perry’s force pounded Barclay’s ships until they could offer no effective resistance and surrendered. Although he had won the battle aboard Niagara, he received the British surrender on the deck of the recaptured Lawrence to allow the British to see the terrible price his men had paid.[21]
Perry’s battle report to General William Henry Harrison was famously brief: “We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.”[22][C]
Although the engagement was small compared to Napoleonic naval battles such as the Battle of Trafalgar, the victory had disproportionate strategic importance, opening Canada up to possible invasion, while simultaneously protecting the entire Ohio Valley.[3][27] The loss of the British squadron directly led to the critical Battle of the Thames, the rout of British forces by Harrison’s army, the death of Tecumseh, and the breakup of his Indian alliance.[26] Along with the Battle of Plattsburgh, it was one of only two significant fleet victories of the war.[3]
