Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in town will be mostly sunny with a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:35, for 9h 10m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 20.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

An ad hoc group from the Urban Forestry Commission (Heritage Tree Committee) meets today at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1933, construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge:

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate strait, the one-mile-wide (1.6 km), three-mile-long (4.8 km) channel between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to Marin County, bridging both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. The bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and the United States. It has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.^[7]

The Frommers travel guide considers the Golden Gate Bridge “possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world”.^[8] It opened in 1937 and was, until 1964, the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 4,200 feet (1,300 m)….

Construction began on January 5, 1933.^[9] The project cost more than $35 million,^[29] completing ahead of schedule and under budget.^[30] The Golden Gate Bridge construction project was carried out by the McClintic-Marshall Construction Co., a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Corporation founded by Howard H. McClintic and Charles D. Marshall, both of Lehigh University.

Today is the birthday of a socialist whose supposedly successful community proved – predictably – anything but successful:

1813 – Utopian Community Leader Warren Chase Born

On this date the founder of a Fourierite Utopian community in what is now Ripon was born. Their inspiration came from the writings of Charles Fourier, a French Socialist who urged the rebuilding of society from its foundation as the only cure for economic ills such as the depression of 1837. The idea was supported by Horace Greely in New York and caught the eye of Warren Chase. Chase and others built a successful, non-religious communal society in which everyone received wages according to their skill, need, and work ethic.

The community reached their greatest population (180) in 1845 but soon dissipated when members began moving toward agriculture as an economic tool. Families gradually left the community to live in their own houses and work their own land in the same area. In 1850, the community disbanded and $40,000 in assets was divided among the remaining members. Warren Chase moved around the country and finally settled in California, where he held many public offices. [Source: Wisconsin Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes, p. 94-104]

Here’s the Tuesday game in this week’s Sweet Sixteen series from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — January 4-8

Sweet Sixteen

Happy 2016! For each day this week, we’ll give an eight-letter word or phrase and a trivia question. The 16-letter answer to that question (a title, name, or place) uses only the eight letters given.

Example:

HISTOGEN: What Rod Stewart song was his first U.S. #1 after “Maggie May,” five years later?

Answer:

“Tonight’s the Night”

What to Submit:

Submit the 16-letter title, name, or place (as “Tonight’s the Night” in the example) for your answer.

Tuesday, January 5

TAIL ENDS: What was the title of the 1960s-1980s American editions of the Agatha Christie book also known as And Then There Were None?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Our first work week of the year begins today, and I hope you’re looking forward to it as I am. Challenges await our city, but nothing that cannot be overcome, and much to which we can look forward. We have a day of partly cloudy skies and twenty-six degrees for a high. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:34, for 9h 09m 06s daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 28.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

A quick note – I had promised posts on how UW-Whitewater (and now the UW System) have addressed sexual assault. I’ve delayed the posts only to consider to additional information. It’s a serious subject, and an ongoing one for this city (and state). I’ll publish posts when they’re ready, with the understanding that there will be more policy developments to address throughout the year. It seems there will, sadly, always be the risk and occurrence of some violence in society; there needn’t, by contrast, be any administrative self-protection and mendacity in a well-ordered society.

On this day in 2004, the American rover Spirit landed on Mars:

Spirit, also known as MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover – A) or MER-2, is a robotic rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010.^[1] It was one of two rovers of NASA‘s ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity (MER-B), landed on the other side of the planet. Its name was chosen through a NASA-sponsored student essay competition. The rover became stuck in late 2009, and its last communication with Earth was sent on March 22, 2010.

The rover completed its planned 90-sol mission. Aided by cleaning events that resulted in higher power from its solar panels, Spirit went on to function effectively over twenty times longer than NASA planners expected. Spirit also logged 7.73 km (4.8 mi) of driving instead of the planned 600 m (0.4 mi),^[5] allowing more extensive geological analysis of Martian rocks and planetary surface features. Initial scientific results from the first phase of the mission (the 90-sol prime mission) were published in a special issue of the journal Science.^[6]

Puzzability begins the year with a series entitled, Sweet Sixteen:

This Week’s Game — January 4-8

Sweet Sixteen

Happy 2016! For each day this week, we’ll give an eight-letter word or phrase and a trivia question. The 16-letter answer to that question (a title, name, or place) uses only the eight letters given.

Example:

HISTOGEN: What Rod Stewart song was his first U.S. #1 after “Maggie May,” five years later?

Answer:

“Tonight’s the Night”

What to Submit:

Submit the 16-letter title, name, or place (as “Tonight’s the Night” in the example) for your answer.

Monday, January 4

SHIPMENT: In what city (with state) is FedEx’s headquarters?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday look much like yesterday: cloudy in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, with a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:33 for 9h 08m 06s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 36.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW poll asked readers if, on New Year’s Day, they’d watch a college football game.  Most respondents (76.47%) said yes, that they would watch one.

Two-thousand fifteen saw (at least) 83 rocket launches.  Here are those 83:

On January 3rd, 1777, following his earlier victories at Trenton and Assunpink Creek, Washington is again victorious at Princeton:

The Battle of Princeton (January 3, 1777) was a small battle in which General George Washington‘s revolutionary forces defeated British forces near Princeton,New Jersey.

On the night of January 2, 1777 George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek inTrenton. That night, he evacuated his position, circled around General Lord Cornwallis‘ army, and went to attack the British garrison at Princeton. Brigadier GeneralHugh Mercer of the Continental Army clashed with two regiments under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood of the British Army. Mercer and his troops were overrun and Washington sent some militia under Brigadier General John Cadwalader to help him. The militia, on seeing the flight of Mercer’s men, also began to flee. Washington rode up with reinforcements and rallied the fleeing militia. He then led the attack on Mawhood’s troops, driving them back. Mawhood gave the order to retreat and most of the troops tried to flee to Cornwallis in Trenton….

The British viewed Trenton and Princeton as minor American victories, but with these victories, the Americans believed that they could win the war.^[43]American historians often consider the Battle of Princeton a great victory, on par with the battle of Trenton, due to the subsequent loss of control of most of New Jersey by the Crown forces. Some other historians, such as Edward Lengel consider it to be even more impressive than Trenton.^[4] A century later, British historian Sir George Otto Trevelyan would write in a study of the American Revolution, when talking about the impact of the victories at Trenton and Princeton, that “It may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world.”^[51]

Good morning, Whitewater.

The second day of the year will be, for Whitewater, sunny with a high of twenty-nine. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:32, for 9h 07m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 46.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

One can be sure that a Star Wars tide has swept all before it when Sarah Reich tap dances to a medley from that film series –

1863 – (Civil War) Final day of Battle of Stones River, Tennessee

This was the final day of the Battle of Stones River, near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The 1st, 10th, 15th, 21st and 24th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and 3rd, 5th, 8th, and 10th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries participated. The 21st was in the forefront all three days. The 24th lost nearly 40 percent of its men and almost all its officers. The two sides had traded control for three days until they both withdrew and the Union took possession of the field. The rich farmland meant to feed the Confederates now supplied the Union.

Good morning, Whitewater.

A new year begins in the Whippet City, with cloudy skies, perhaps a few flurries, and a high of twenty-five. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:31, for 9h 06m 20s of daytime each day. The moon is a waning gibbous with 56.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

I’ve made a change to the cartoon feature here at FW.  Before, only Wednesday featured a cartoon, but I have replaced the weekly cartoon with a widget on the right sidebar that, when clicked, will produce a daily cartoon. The image on the sidebar stays the same, but clicking it shows a larger, daily cartoon from the popular, professional cartoonist Mark Anderson. I’m a big fan of his work and I know that many of you are, too (thanks for your messages about these cartoons).

On this day in 1946, an American solider has an unexpected encounter:

An American soldier accepts the surrender of about 20 Japanese soldiers who only discovered that the war was over by reading it in the newspaper.

On the island of Corregidor, located at the mouth of Manila Bay, a lone soldier on detail for the American Graves Registration was busy recording the makeshift graves of American soldiers who had lost their lives fighting the Japanese. He was interrupted when approximately 20 Japanese soldiers approached him—literally waving a white flag. They had been living in an underground tunnel built during the war and learned that their country had already surrendered when one of them ventured out in search of water and found a newspaper announcing Japan’s defeat.

On this day in 1836, Michigan forms a territory:

1836 – Wisconsin Territory Formed

On this date the Wisconsin Territory was formed by an act of the Michigan Legislature. Brown County lost a portion of its original possession north of the Menominee River but gained the remainder of the eastern peninsula. Territorial officials were sworn on July 4th of the same year.  [Source: Sussex-Lisbon Area Historical Society]