Good morning, Whitewater.
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty. Sunrise today is 6:49 AM and sunset 6:42 PM. The moon is a waxing crescent with nineteen percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Here’s one lucky cyclist from Russia, in the midst of accidents and chaos all around, but able to walk away —
On this day in 1781, as the Battle of Yorktown begins, Lord Cornwallis’s days as a British commander are numbered:
…General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the most important battle of the Revolutionary War.
Earlier, in a stroke of luck for the Patriots, the French fleet commanded by Francois, Count de Grasse, departed St. Domingue (the then-French colony that is now Haiti) for the Chesapeake Bay, just as Cornwallis chose Yorktown, at the mouth of the Chesapeake, as his base. Washington realized that it was time to act. He ordered Marquis de Lafayette and an American army of 5,000 troops to block Cornwallis’ escape from Yorktown by land while the French naval fleet blocked the British escape by sea. By September 28, Washington had completely encircled Cornwallis and Yorktown with the combined forces of Continental and French troops. After three weeks of non-stop bombardment, both day and night, from cannon and artillery, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in the field at Yorktown on October 17, 1781, effectively ending the War for Independence.
Pleading illness, Cornwallis did not attend the formal surrender ceremony, held on October 19. Instead, his second in command, General Charles O’Hara, carried Cornwallis’ sword to the American and French commanders.
Although the war persisted on the high seas and in other theaters, the Patriot victory at Yorktown ended fighting in the American colonies. Peace negotiations began in 1782, and on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, formally recognizing the United States as a free and independent nation after eight years of war.
On this day in 1925, one of America’s finest computer engineers is born:
1925 – Seymour R. Cray Born
On this date Seymour R. Cray was born in Chippewa Falls. Cray received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. He established himself in the field of large-scale computer design through his work for Engineering Associates, Remington Rand, UNIVAC, and Control Data Corporation. In 1957 Cray built the first computer to use radio transistors instead of vacuum tubes. This allowed for the miniaturization of components which enhanced the performance of desktop computers. In the 1960s he designed the world’s first supercomputer at Control Data. In 1972 he founded Cray Research in his hometown of Chippewa Falls where he established the standard for supercomputers with CRAY-1 (1976) and CRAY-2 (1985). He resigned from the company in 1981 to devote himself to computer design in the areas of vector register technology and cooling systems. Cray died in a automobile accident on October 5, 1996. [Source: MIT and Cray Company]