Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-nine.  Sunrise is 5:32 AM and sunset 8:29 PM, for 14h 57m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was then the USAAF Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range (now part of White Sands Missile Range). The only structures originally in the vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components. A base camp was constructed, and there were 425 people present on the weekend of the test.

The code name “Trinity” was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, inspired by the poetry of John Donne. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium device, informally nicknamed “The Gadget”, of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The complexity of the design required a major effort from the Los Alamos Laboratory, and concerns about whether it would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test. The test was planned and directed by Kenneth Bainbridge.

Fears of a fizzle led to the construction of a steel containment vessel called Jumbo that could contain the plutonium, allowing it to be recovered, but Jumbo was not used. A rehearsal was held on May 7, 1945, in which 108 long tons (110 t) of high explosive spiked with radioactive isotopes were detonated. The Gadget’s detonation released the explosive energy of about 20 kilotons of TNT (84 TJ). Observers included Vannevar Bush, James Chadwick, James Conant, Thomas Farrell, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Leslie Groves, Robert Oppenheimer, Geoffrey Taylor, and Richard Tolman….

In his official report on the test, Farrell wrote:

The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun. It was golden, purple, violet, gray, and blue. It lighted every peak, crevasse and ridge of the nearby mountain range with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described but must be seen to be imagined …^[91]

On this day in 1941, the Horicon Wildlife Refuge is established:

On this date the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge was established after a 20 year struggle by conservationists. The refuge is over 21,000 acres, encompasses the Horicon Marsh, the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States, and is home to over 223 species of birds and other wildlife. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride, p. 6 and Horicon National Wildlife Refuge]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday in town will be cloudy with a high of seventy. Sunrise is 5:31 AM and sunset 8:30 PM, for 14h 59m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 80.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

In July 1971, President Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger secretly visited Beijing during a trip to Pakistan, and laid the groundwork for Nixon’s visit to China. Transcripts of White House meetings and once confidential documents show Nixon began working to open a channel of communication with Beijing from his first day in the White House.^[5]

On this day in 1980, severe Wisconsin weather causes millions of dollars in damage:

1980 – Western Wisconsin Derecho

The Western Wisconsin Derecho was a severe weather system that moved through several western counties on July 15, 1980. It cut a 20-mile-wide swath through St Croix, Pierce, Dunn, Eau Claire, Chippewa, and Clark counties. Although much of the storm’s damage was caused by straight-line winds in excess of 100 mph, several tornadoes were also reported. The storm caused nearly $160M in damage (1980 dollars) and killed three people.

A Google a Day asks a question about racing: “Stewart-Haas Racing made an agreement with Tommy Baldwin Racing that guaranteed what female driver a spot in the 2012 Sprint Cup Opener?”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 5:30 AM and sunset 8:31 PM, for 15h 01m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

It’s Bastille Day:

On the morning of 14 July 1789, the city of Paris was in a state of alarm. The partisans of the Third Estate in France, now under the control of the Bourgeois Militia of Paris (soon to become Revolutionary France’s National Guard), had earlier stormed the Hôtel des Invalides without meeting significant opposition. Their intention had been to gather the weapons held there (29,000 to 32,000 muskets, but without powder or shot). The commandant at the Invalides had in the previous few days taken the precaution of transferring 250 barrels of gunpowder to the Bastille for safer storage.

At this point, the Bastille was nearly empty of prisoners, housing only seven old men annoyed by all the disturbance:^[4] four forgers, two “lunatics” and one “deviant” aristocrat, the Comte de Solages (the Marquis de Sade had been transferred out ten days earlier). The cost of maintaining a garrisoned medieval fortress for so limited a purpose, had led to a decision being taken to replace it with an open public space,^[5] shortly before the disturbances began….

The firing continued, and after 3pm the attackers were reinforced by mutinous gardes françaises, along with two cannons. A substantial force of Royal Army troops encamped on the Champs de Mars did not intervene. With the possibility of mutual carnage suddenly apparent, Governor de Launay ordered a cease-fire at 5:00. A letter offering his terms was handed out to the besiegers through a gap in the inner gate. His demands were refused, but de Launay nonetheless capitulated, as he realised that with limited food stocks and no water supply^[9] his troops could not hold out much longer. He accordingly opened the gates to the inner courtyard, and the vainqueurs swept in to liberate the fortress at 5:30….

The king first learned of the storming only the next morning through the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. “Is it a revolt?” asked Louis XVI. The duke replied: “No sire, it’s not a revolt; it’s a revolution.”^[13]

On this day in 1948, Janesville tries its hand at insect-control:

On this date, intending to create a bug-free environment, Janesville tested a DDT fogging machine that quickly emitted a “smokescreen of insect-killing fog.” City officials hoped to persuade the county to buy the machine for use by all municipalities or to buy it jointly with Beloit. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

A Google a Day asks a history question: “What treaty was responsible for the creation of the intergovernmental organization that would eventually be replaced by the UN?”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in town will be be partly cloudy, with a high of eighty-nine and an even chance of afternoon thunderstorms.  Sunrise is 5:29 AM and sunset 8:32 PM, for 15h 02m 32s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 63.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

The New York City blackout of 1977 was an electricity blackout that affected most of New York City on July 13–14, 1977. The only neighborhoods in the city that were not affected were in southern Queens, neighborhoods of the Rockaways, which were part of the Long Island Lighting Company system and the Pratt Institute campus in Brooklyn which operated its own historic power generator….

The blackout occurred when the city was facing a severe financial crisis and its residents were fretting over the Son of Sam murders. The nation as a whole was suffering from a protracted economic downturn, and commentators have contrasted the event with the good-natured “Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?” atmosphere of 1965. Some pointed to the financial crisis as a root cause of the disorder, others noted the hot July weather, as the Northeast at the time was in the middle of a brutal heat wave. Still others pointed out that the 1977 blackout came after businesses had closed and their owners went home, while in 1965 the blackout occurred during the day and owners stayed to protect their property. However, the 1977 looters continued their damage into the daylight hours, with police on alert.[1]

Looting and vandalism were widespread, hitting 31 neighborhoods, including most poor neighborhoods in the city. Possibly the hardest hit were Crown Heights, where 75 stores on a five-block stretch were looted, and Bushwick, where arson was rampant with some 25 fires still burning the next morning. At one point two blocks of Broadway, which separates Bushwick from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, were on fire. Thirty-five blocks of Broadway were destroyed: 134 stores looted, 45 of them set ablaze. Thieves stole 50 new Pontiacs from a Bronx car dealership.[1] In Brooklyn, youths were seen backing up cars to targeted stores, tying ropes around the stores’ grates, and using their cars to pull the grates away before looting the store.[1] While 550 police officers were injured in the mayhem, 4,500 looters were arrested.[1]

On this day in 1787, Congress establishes a new territory:

On this date the Northwest Ordinance was passed by the Continental Congress. The ordinance provided for the administration of the territories and set rules for admission as a state. The Northwest territory included land west of Pennsylvania and Northwest of the Ohio River, which encompassed present day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, parts of Minnesota and of course Wisconsin. [Source: Indiana Historical Bureau]

A Google a Day‘s question asks about science and technology: “Of the five NASA space shuttles, which one flew the most missions?”