Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday brings thunderstorms to the city, with a high of fifty-two degrees. Sunrise is 7:07 and sunset 7:02, for 11h 58m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 48.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1783, Washington acts to quell unrest among officers:

On the morning of March 15, 1783, General George Washington makes a surprise appearance at an assembly of army officers at Newburgh, New York, to calm the growing frustration and distrust they had been openly expressing towards Congress in the previous few weeks. Angry with Congress for failing to honor its promise to pay them and for its failure to settle accounts for repayment of food and clothing, officers began circulating an anonymous letter condemning Congress and calling for a revolt.

When word of the letter and its call for an unsanctioned meeting of officers reached him, Washington issued a general order forbidding any unsanctioned meetings and called for a general assembly of officers for March 15. At the meeting, Washington began his speech to the officers by saying, “Gentlemen: By an anonymous summons, an attempt has been made to convene you together; how inconsistent with the rules of propriety! How unmilitary! And how subversive of all order and discipline…”

Washington continued by pledging, “to exert whatever ability I am possessed of, in your favor.” He added, “Let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any measures, which viewed in the calm light of reason, will lessen the dignity, and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained; let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of your country, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress.”

JigZone‘s puzzle for today is a 67-piece venus fly trap:

Good morning, Whitewater.

Our work week in town begins with morning fog, afternoon clouds, and a high of forty-seven. Sunrise is 7:05 and sunset 7:01, for 11h 55m 26s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 36.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission at 6:30 PM tonight, and her school board in open session at 7 PM.

Albert Einstein was born on this day in 1879.

On this day in 1854, the Baraboo River floods:

1854 – Baraboo River Floods

According to Sauk County’s Web site, “On the night of March 14, 1859, the Baraboo River, greatly swollen by spring rains and melting snow, went on a rampage, taking out a dam that supplied power for the flour mill of Bassett and Pratt. The flour mill was then the ‘largest institution of its kind for many miles around and about it centered the interest of the entire community’. Nearly 500 men responded to the catastrophe. The progress of the water was checked by the felling of trees. The flour in the mill was hauled to safety with team and wagons. The flood caused damage to the lower Maxwell Dam.” To see what life was like then in Baraboo — and throughout much of southern Wisconsin at the time — read this letter by settler Charles Abbott to his family in New Hampshire. “It is a universal rule here to help one another…,” he writes. You can find materials about the history of your own community in our online collection of Wisconsin Community Histories.

JigZone‘s puzzle for today is of a house:

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be rainy with a high of forty-eight. Sunrise is 7:07 and sunset 7:00 for 11h 52m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 26.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW poll asked whether readers thought that it was legitimate or illegitimate for a senior citizens center in Rhode Island to dress a middle-aged man as an elderly woman during a public presentation. A majority of respondents (89.36%) thought that it was illegitimate.

Only a generation ago, sending email was a cumbersome process, but to someone in Britain in 1984 it seemed speedy (it wasn’t):

Uranus had been observed on many occasions before its recognition as a planet, but it was generally mistaken for a star. Possibly the earliest known observation was by Hipparchos, who in 128 BC may have recorded it as a star for his star catalogue that was later incorporated into Ptolemy‘s Almagest.^[18] The earliest definite sighting was in 1690 when John Flamsteed observed it at least six times, cataloguing it as 34 Tauri. The French astronomer Pierre Lemonnier observed Uranus at least twelve times between 1750 and 1769,^[19] including on four consecutive nights.

Sir William Herschel observed Uranus on March 13, 1781 from the garden of his house at 19 New King Street in Bath, Somerset, England (now the Herschel Museum of Astronomy),^[20] and initially reported it (on April 26, 1781) as a comet.^[21] Herschel “engaged in a series of observations on the parallax of the fixed stars”,^[22] using a telescope of his own design.

He recorded in his journal “In the quartile near … Tauri … either [a] Nebulous star or perhaps a comet”.^[23] On March 17, he noted, “I looked for the Comet or Nebulous Star and found that it is a Comet, for it has changed its place”.^[24] When he presented his discovery to the Royal Society, he continued to assert that he had found a comet, but also implicitly compared it to a planet:^[22]

“The power I had on when I first saw the comet was 227. From experience I know that the diameters of the fixed stars are not proportionally magnified with higher powers, as planets are; therefore I now put the powers at 460 and 932, and found that the diameter of the comet increased in proportion to the power, as it ought to be, on the supposition of its not being a fixed star, while the diameters of the stars to which I compared it were not increased in the same ratio. Moreover, the comet being magnified much beyond what its light would admit of, appeared hazy and ill-defined with these great powers, while the stars preserved that lustre and distinctness which from many thousand observations I knew they would retain. The sequel has shown that my surmises were well-founded, this proving to be the Comet we have lately observed”.

Herschel notified the Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne, of his discovery and received this flummoxed reply from him on April 23: “I don’t know what to call it. It is as likely to be a regular planet moving in an orbit nearly circular to the sun as a Comet moving in a very eccentric ellipsis. I have not yet seen any coma or tail to it”.^[25]

Although Herschel continued to describe his new object as a comet, other astronomers had already begun to suspect otherwise. Finnish-Swedish astronomerAnders Johan Lexell, working in Russia, was the first to compute the orbit of the new object^[26] and its nearly circular orbit led him to a conclusion that it was a planet rather than a comet. Berlin astronomer Johann Elert Bode described Herschel’s discovery as “a moving star that can be deemed a hitherto unknown planet-like object circulating beyond the orbit of Saturn”.^[27] Bode concluded that its near-circular orbit was more like a planet than a comet.^[28]

The object was soon universally accepted as a new planet. By 1783, Herschel acknowledged this to Royal Society president Joseph Banks: “By the observation of the most eminent Astronomers in Europe it appears that the new star, which I had the honour of pointing out to them in March 1781, is a Primary Planet of our Solar System.”^[29] In recognition of his achievement, King George III gave Herschel an annual stipend of £200 on condition that he move to Windsor so that the Royal Family could look through his telescopes.^[30]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of sixty-three. Sunrise is 6:09 and sunset 5:59, for 11h 49m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1933, Pres. Roosevelt began this first of thirty fireside chats:

Fireside chats is the term used to describe a series of 30 evening radio addresses given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944. The fireside chats represent the first time in history that a chief executive communicated directly with a large number of citizens. Roosevelt spoke with familiarity to millions of Americans about the promulgation of the Emergency Banking Actin response to the banking crisis, the recession, New Deal initiatives, and the course of World War II. On radio, he was able to quell rumors and explain his policies comprehensibly. His tone and demeanor communicated self-assurance during times of despair and uncertainty. Roosevelt was one of radio’s greatest communicators, and the fireside chats kept him in high public regard throughout his presidency.

The series of fireside chats was among the first 50 recordings made part of the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, which noted it as “an influential series of radio broadcasts in which Roosevelt utilized the media to present his programs and ideas directly to the public and thereby redefined the relationship between the President and the American people.”

On this day in 1862, the Second Wisconsin readies:

1862 – (Civil War) 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry Mustered In

The 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry mustered in at Milwaukee. It would go on to participate in the Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas, on December 7, 1862, and in the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the following year. The regiment would lose 312 men during service. Twenty-four enlisted men were killed in combat, and four officers and 284 enlisted men died from disease.