Good morning, Whitewater.

Halloween in town will be partly cloudy with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 7:29 AM and sunset 5:47 PM, for 10h 17m 50s of daytime. The moon is new today, with just .4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1861, Winfield Scott steps down:

Citing failing health, General Winfield Scott, commander of the Union forces, retires from service on this day in 1861. The hero of the Mexican War recognized early in the Civil War that his health and advancing years were a liability in the daunting task of directing the Federal war effort. Scott was born in Virginia in 1786. He graduated from William and Mary College and joined the military in 1808; he had become the youngest general in the army by the end of the War of 1812.Scott was an important figure in the development of the U.S. Army after that war, having designed a system of regulations and tactical manuals that defined the institution for most of the 19th century. Although Scott’s tactics, many of which were borrowed from the French, were of little use in the irregular warfare the army waged against the Seminoles and Creek in the southeast, his methods worked brilliantly during the war with Mexico in 1846 and 1847.

His campaign against Mexico City, in particular, is remembered for the strength of its planning and execution. During the secession crisis of 1861, Scott remained at his post, refusing to join his native state in abandoning the union. Scott was asked by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to devise a comprehensive plan to defeat the Confederacy.

The strategy Scott developed called for the blockading of ports to isolate the South economically, to be followed by an offensive down the Mississippi River. In the optimistic early days of the war, this strategy seemed hopelessly sluggish—in fact, critics dubbed it the “Anaconda Plan” after the giant Amazonian snake that slowly strangles its prey. Despite this initial criticism, it was the basic strategy that eventually won the war for the Union.

Scott also drew criticism for ordering the advance of General Irwin McDowell’s army into Virginia, which resulted in the disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861. With the arrival of George McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac shortly after, Scott’s influence waned. He weighed over 300 pounds, suffered from gout and rheumatism, and was unable to mount a horse.

His resignation on October 31 did not end his influence on the war, however. Lincoln occasionally sought his counsel, and many of his former officers commanded forces and executed the same maneuvers that he had used in Mexico. Scott retired to West Point to write his memoirs and died in 1866.

On this day in 1968, the Bucks win their first game:

On this date the Milwaukee Bucks claimed their first victory, a 134-118 win over the Detroit Pistons in the Milwaukee Arena. The Bucks were 0-5 at the time, and Wayne Embry led Milwaukee with 30 points. Embry became the first player in Bucks history to score 30 or more points in a regular season game. [Source: Milwaukee Bucks]

JigZone‘s puzzle for today is of a buckle:

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be cloudy with a high of fifty-five. Sunrise is 7:28 AM and sunset 5:48 PM, for 10h 20m 25s of daytime. The moon is new today, with just .1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW poll asked readers which team they thought would win the World Series. With the series then tied 1-1, majority of respondents thought that the Cubs would win (I thought so, too.) It’s now 3-1 in favor of the Indians, with game 5 tonight in Chicago. Games 6 and 7, if necessary, will be played in Cleveland.

Like so many others, I’ll be sorry to see baseball end, however the series turns out.

“The War of the Worlds” is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on Sunday, October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells‘ novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It became famous for allegedly causing mass panic, although the reality of the panic is disputed as the program had relatively few listeners.^[3]

The first two-thirds of the one-hour broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. The illusion of realism was furthered because the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show without commercial interruptions, and the first break in the program came almost 30 minutes into the broadcast. Popular legend holds that some of the radio audience may have been listening to Edgar Bergen and tuned in to “The War of the Worlds” during a musical interlude, thereby missing the clear introduction that the show was a drama, but recent research suggests this only happened in rare instances.^[4]:67–69

In the days following the adaptation, widespread outrage was expressed in the media. The program’s news-bulletin format was described as deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast and calls for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.^[3] The episode secured Welles’s fame as a dramatist.

On this day in 1914, Wisconsin gets her first 4-H Club:

1914 – First 4-H Club in Wisconsin Organized

On this date the Linn Junior Farmers Club in Walworth County was organized. This club was started five months after Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act which created the Cooperative Extension Service whereby federal, state, and county governments participate in the county agent system. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in town will be cloudy with a high of sixty-six. Sunrise is 7:26 AM and sunset 5:49 PM, for 10h 23m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 1.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1969, the first message was sent on the ARPANET, an Internet precursor:

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was an early packet switching network and the first network to implement the protocol suite TCP/IP. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. ARPANET was initially funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

The packet switching methodology employed in the ARPANET was based on concepts and designs by Americans Leonard Kleinrock and Paul Baran, British scientist Donald Davies, and Lawrence Roberts of the Lincoln Laboratory.^[6] The TCP/IP communications protocols were developed for ARPANET by computer scientists Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf, and incorporated concepts by Louis Pouzin for the French CYCLADES project….

The first successful message on the ARPANET was sent by UCLA student programmer Charley Kline, at 10:30 pm on 29 October 1969, from Boelter Hall 3420.^[32] Kline transmitted from the university’s SDS Sigma 7 Host computer to the Stanford Research Institute’s SDS 940 Host computer. The message text was the word login; on an earlier attempt the l and the o letters were transmitted, but the system then crashed. Hence, the literal first message over the ARPANET was lo.

About an hour later, after the programmers repaired the code that caused the crash, the SDS Sigma 7 computer effected a full login.

The first permanent ARPANET link was established on 21 November 1969, between the IMP at UCLA and the IMP at the Stanford Research Institute. By 5 December 1969, the entire four-node network was established.^[33]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday in town will be partly cloudy & windy, with a high of sixty-four.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset is 5:51 PM, for 10h 25m 38s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 4.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1886, Pres. Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty:

A ceremony of dedication was held on the afternoon of October 28, 1886. President Grover Cleveland, the former New York governor, presided over the event.^[99] On the morning of the dedication, a parade was held in New York City; estimates of the number of people who watched it ranged from several hundred thousand to a million. President Cleveland headed the procession, then stood in the reviewing stand to see bands and marchers from across America. General Stone was the grand marshal of the parade. The route began at Madison Square, once the venue for the arm, and proceeded to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan by way of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, with a slight detour so the parade could pass in front of the World building on Park Row. As the parade passed the New York Stock Exchange, traders threw ticker tape from the windows, beginning the New York tradition of the ticker-tape parade.^[100]

A nautical parade began at 12:45 p.m., and President Cleveland embarked on a yacht that took him across the harbor to Bedloe’s Island for the dedication.^[101] De Lesseps made the first speech, on behalf of the French committee, followed by the chairman of the New York committee, Senator William M. Evarts. A French flag draped across the statue’s face was to be lowered to unveil the statue at the close of Evarts’s speech, but Bartholdi mistook a pause as the conclusion and let the flag fall prematurely. The ensuing cheers put an end to Evarts’s address.^[100] President Cleveland spoke next, stating that the statue’s “stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression until Liberty enlightens the world”.^[102]Bartholdi, observed near the dais, was called upon to speak, but he refused. Orator Chauncey M. Depew concluded the speechmaking with a lengthy address.^[103]

No members of the general public were permitted on the island during the ceremonies, which were reserved entirely for dignitaries. The only females granted access were Bartholdi’s wife and de Lesseps’s granddaughter; officials stated that they feared women might be injured in the crush of people. The restriction offended area suffragists, who chartered a boat and got as close as they could to the island. The group’s leaders made speeches applauding the embodiment of Liberty as a woman and advocating women’s right to vote.^[102] A scheduled fireworks display was postponed until November 1 because of poor weather.^[104]

On this day in 1892, a fire destroys much of Milwaukee’s Third Ward:

On this date an exploding oil barrel started a small fire in Milwaukee. It spread rapidly and by morning four people had died, 440 buildings were destroyed, and more than 1,900 people in the Irish neighborhood were left homeless. It was the most disastrous fire in Milwaukee’s history. [Source: Historic Third Ward]

JigZone‘s puzzle for Friday is of a spaniel:

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in town will be cloudy with a high of fifty. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 5:52 PM, for 10h 28m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 9.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1775, King George III addresses Parliament, and expands on his earlier Proclamation of Rebellion:

The Proclamation of Rebellion, officially titled A Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, was the response of George III of Great Britain to the news of the Battle of Bunker Hill at the outset of the American Revolutionary War. Issued August 23, 1775, it declared elements of the American colonies in a state of “open and avowed rebellion.” It ordered officials of the British Empire “to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion.” The Proclamation also encouraged subjects throughout the Empire, including those in Great Britain, to report anyone carrying on “traitorous correspondence” with the rebels so that they could be punished.

The Proclamation was written before Colonial Secretary Lord Dartmouth had been given a copy of the Olive Branch Petitionfrom the Continental Congress. Because the king refused to receive the petition, the Proclamation effectively served as an answer to the petition.^[1]

On October 27, 1775, King George expanded on the Proclamation in his Speech from the Throne at the opening of Parliament.^[2] The King insisted that rebellion was being fomented by a “desperate conspiracy” of leaders whose claims of allegiance to him were insincere; what the rebels really wanted, he said, was to create an “independent Empire.” The king indicated that he intended to deal with the crisis with armed force, and was even considering “friendly offers of foreign assistance” to suppress the rebellion. A pro-American minority in Parliament warned that the government was driving the colonists towards independence, something that many colonial leaders had insisted they did not desire.^[3]

The Second Continental Congress issued a response to the Proclamation on December 6, saying that while they had always been loyal to the king, the British Parliament never had any legitimate claim to authority over them, because the colonies were not democratically represented. Congress argued that it was their duty to continue resisting Parliament’s violations of the British Constitution, and that they would retaliate if any supporters in Great Britain were punished for “favouring, aiding, or abetting the cause of American liberty.” Congress maintained that they still hoped to avoid the “calamities” of a “civil war.”

On this day in 1864, a solider from Waukesha does his part for the Union:

1864 – Waukesha Soldier Sinks Confederate Ship

On this date William Cushing led an expedition to sink the Confederate ram, the Albermarle, which had imposed a blockade near Plymouth, North Carolina and had been sinking Union ships. Cushing’s plan was extremely dangerous and only he and one other soldier escaped drowning or capture. Cushing pulled very close to the Confederate ironclad and exploded a torpedo under it while under heavy fire. Cushing’s crew abandoned ship as it began to sink. The Albemarle also sunk. Cushing received a “letter of thanks” from Congress and was promoted to Lieutenant Commander. He died in 1874 due to ill health and is buried in the Naval Cemetery at Annapolis, Maryland. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes, p.274-285]

JigZone‘s puzzle for Thursday is of a tipi: