Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday in the city will be warm, with a high of ninety-two, with an occasional stray thundershower possible. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 17m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 31.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1881, Tolstoy begins a pilgrimage in disguise:

…Count Leo Tolstoy sets off on a pilgrimage to a monastery disguised as a peasant.

Tolstoy had already produced his two greatest masterpieces War and Peace (1865-1869) and Anna Karenina (1875-1877). The Russian nobleman was engaged in a spiritual struggle and felt torn between his responsibility as a wealthy landlord to improve the lot of the people, and his desire to give up his property and wander the land as an ascetic. He had started giving away his possessions and declared that the public owned his works, but his wife, Sofya, worried about the financial stability of the couple’s 13 children, gained control of the copyrights for all his work published before 1880.

Tolstoy was born in 1828. His parents died when he was a child, and he was raised by relatives. He went to Kazan University at age 16 but was disappointed in the quality of education there and returned to his estate in 1847 without a degree. He lived a wild and dissolute life in Moscow and St. Petersburg until 1851, when he joined the army. He fought in the Crimean war, and his experiences in the defense of Sevastopol became a successful literary memoir, Sevastopol Sketches, in 1855. While in the army, he wrote several other autobiographical works.

In 1857, Tolstoy visited Europe and became interested in education. He started a school for peasant children on his estate and studied progressive educational techniques. In 1862, he married, and the following year he published a successful novel, The Cossacks.

Later in his life, Tolstoy embraced Christian anarchism and was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1910, he fled his home secretly with his youngest daughter but caught pneumonia and died at a remote railway station a few days later.

On this day in 1837, workers begin building a capitol:

1837 – State Capitol Workers Arrive in Madison
On this date workmen arrived in Madison to begin construction of the first state capitol building. A ceremony to lay the building’s cornerstone was to be held three weeks later, on July 4, 1837. [Source: Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles]

A Google a Day asks about American history: “Whose decision in Marbury v Madison established the principle of judicial review?”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in town will be a day of scattered thunderstorms and a high of seventy-nine.  Sunrise is 5:15 PM and sunset is 8:32 PM, for 15h 16m 45s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s CDA Board meets at 5 PM, and her Police and Fire Commission at 6:30 PM.

Google has a doodle today to mark the birthday of Phoebe Snetsinger, who in her lifetime had seen 8,398 species of birds.

On this day in 1973, Secretariat wins the Triple Crown:

In the stretch, Secretariat opened a lead of almost ¹?₁₆ mile on the rest of the field. At the finish, he won by 31 lengths (breaking the margin-of-victory record set by Triple Crown winner Count Fleet in 1943, who won by 25 lengths), and ran the fastest 1¹?₂ miles on dirt in history, 2:24 flat, which broke the stakes record by more than two seconds.^[29][30] This works out to a speed of 37.5 mph for his entire performance. Secretariat’s record still stands; no other horse has ever broken 2:24 for 1¹?₂miles on dirt. If the Beyer Speed Figure calculation had been developed during that time, Andrew Beyer calculated that Secretariat would have earned a figure of 139, the highest he has ever assigned.^[31] Bettors holding 5,617 winning parimutuel tickets on Secretariat never redeemed them, presumably keeping them as souvenirs (and because the tickets would have paid only $2.20 on a $2 bet).^[32]

The race is widely considered the greatest performance of the twentieth century by a North American racehorse. Blood-Horse magazine editor Kent Hollingsworth described the impact: “Two twenty-four flat! I don’t believe it. Impossible. But I saw it. I can’t breathe. He won by a sixteenth of a mile! I saw it. I have to believe it.”^[33]

Secretariat became the ninth Triple Crown winner in history, and the first in 25 years.

A Google a Day asks a geography question: “What area of the country is the main benefactor of the electricity generated by the Hoover Dam?”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday in town will be sunny with a high of seventy-five.  Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset is 8:32 PM, for 15h 16m 01s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 13.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1944, American and British soldiers link at Normandy:

U.S. General Omar Bradley, following orders from General Eisenhower, links up American troops from Omaha Beach with British troops from Gold Beach at Colleville-sur-Mer. Meanwhile, Russian Premier Joseph Stalin telegraphs British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to announce that the Allied success at Normandy “is a source of joy to us all,” and promises to launch his own offensive on the Eastern Front, as had been agreed upon at the Tehran Conference in late ’43, and thereby prevent Hitler from transferring German troops from the east to support troops at Normandy.

It’s Frank Lloyd Wright’s birthday:

On this date Frank Lincoln Wright (he changed his middle name after his parents divorced) was born in Richland Center. An architect, author, and social critic, Wright’s artistic genius demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to create architectural space and vocabulary that drew inspiration from both nature and technology. The son of William Cary Wright, a lawyer and music teacher, and Anna Lloyd Jones, a school teacher, Frank Lloyd Wright’s family moved to Madison in 1877 to be near Anna’s family in Spring Green.

Wright briefly studied civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, after which he moved to Chicago to pursue a career in architecture. Wright started his own firm in 1893 and between 1893 and 1901, 49 buildings designed by Wright were built. Some notable Frank Lloyd Wright structures in Wisconsin include S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc. Administration Building in Racine, the A.D. German Warehouse in Richland Center, and Taliesin and Hillside in Spring Green. The Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in Madison was also based on Wright’s design. Frank Lloyd Wright died on April 9, 1959, in Phoenix, Arizona. [Source: American National Biography, Vol. 24, 1999, p.15]

A Google a Day asks a baseball question: “One of the greatest baseball players of all time was banned from the game for life after he and seven other players accepted bribes to throw a game in what year?”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in town will be cloudy with a high of sixty-nine. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:31 PM, for 15h 15m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at 6 PM, and Common Council at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1776, Richard Henry Lee proposes:

In August 1774, Lee was chosen as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In Lee’s Resolution on the 7th of June 1776 during the Second Continental Congress, Lee put forth the motion to the Continental Congress to declare Independence from Great Britain, which read (in part):

Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

Lee had returned to Virginia by the time Congress voted on and adopted the Declaration of Independence, but he signed the document when he returned to Congress.

On this day in 1924, Wisconsin honors an inventor:

On this date the bronze tablet memorializing C. Latham Sholes was unveiled. Sholes, who lived in Milwaukee, invented the typewriter in 1867. The plaque gives thanks to the “one who materially aided in the world’s progress,” and can be seen at the Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, where Sholes rests. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Homes]

A Google a Day asks a geography question: “The European country that has a half-submerged church in the middle of its largest artificial lake is located in what peninsula?”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in town will bring an afternoon thunderstorm and a high of seventy-six. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:30 PM, for 15h 14m 22s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today is the anniversary, from 6.6.1944, of Allied landings at Normandy:

By dawn on June 6, 18,000 parachutists were already on the ground; the land invasions began at 6:30 a.m. The British and Canadians overcame light opposition to capture Gold, Juno and Sword beaches; so did the Americans at Utah. The task was much tougher at Omaha beach, however, where 2,000 troops were lost and it was only through the tenacity and quick-wittedness of troops on the ground that the objective was achieved. By day’s end, 155,000 Allied troops–Americans, British and Canadians–had successfully stormed Normandy’s beaches.

For their part, the Germans suffered from confusion in the ranks and the absence of celebrated commander Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who was away on leave. At first, Hitler, believing that the invasion was a feint designed to distract the Germans from a coming attack north of the Seine River, refused to release nearby divisions to join the counterattack and reinforcements had to be called from further afield, causing delays. He also hesitated in calling for armored divisions to help in the defense. In addition, the Germans were hampered by effective Allied air support, which took out many key bridges and forced the Germans to take long detours, as well as efficient Allied naval support, which helped protect advancing Allied troops.

On this day in 1622, a missionary and explorer is born:

On this date Jean Claude Allouez was born. As a Jesuit missionary, Allouez founded several missions in the Green Bay area and left a journal describing his travels as well as the peoples and wildlife of Wisconsin in the mid 1600s. [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, SHSW 1960]

A Google a Day ask about numbers: “There are approximately 1 million ants for every how many people on the planet?”