Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:11 and sunset 7:42, for 13h 30m 51s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 67.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Around this day in AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupts, killing thousands:

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD was one of the most catastrophic and infamous volcanic eruptions in European history. Historians have learned about the eruption from the eyewitness account of Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator and poet.^[1]

Mount Vesuvius spewed a deadly cloud of volcanic gas, stones, and ash to a height of 33 kilometres (21 mi), ejecting molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy of the Hiroshima bombing.^[2] Several Roman settlements were obliterated and buried underneath massive pyroclastic surges and ashfall deposits, the most well known being Pompeii and Herculaneum.^[1][2]

The number of deaths is difficult to evaluate. The remains of about 1500 people have been found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, but it is not known whether they represent a small or a large part of the overall deaths….

The year of the eruption is pinned to AD 79 (that is, the corresponding year of the Roman ab urbe condita calendar era) by references in contemporary Roman writers, a number of them apart from Pliny the Younger, and has never been seriously questioned. It is determined by the well-known events of the reign of Titus. Vespasian died that year. When Titus visited Pompeii to give orders for the relief of the displaced population, he was the sole ruler. In the year after the eruption, AD 80, he faced another disaster, a great fire at Rome.

The time of year is stated once in one historical document, the first letter of Pliny the Younger to Tacitus,^[25] as “nonum kal. Septembres”, which is not a regular syntactic unit and has no syntax (the grammarians say, indeclinable), but would seem to be an abbreviation of a standard date. By 79 the Julian Calendar was in use. The inscribing of dates was abbreviational and formulaic. Whether anyone knew exactly what the abbreviation stood for is questionable (compare English Mr. and Mrs.); certainly, literary representations such as Pliny’s left out or misinterpreted key elements that would be required for the understanding of a produced meaning. Pliny’s date (supposing that the date we now find in the text is the same one given by Pliny) would have been a.d. IX kal. sept., to be interpreted as “the ninth day before the Kalends of September”, which would have been eight days before September 1, or August 24 (the Romans counted September 1 as one of the nine)….

On this date in 1970, a bombing on the UW-Madison campus proves deadly:

1970 – Sterling Hall Bombing on UW-Madison Campus
On this date a car bomb exploded outside Sterling Hall, killing research scientist Richard Fassnacht. Sterling Hall was targeted for housing the Army Mathematics Research Center and was bombed in protest of the war in Vietnam. The homemade bomb (2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate soaked in aviation fuel) was detonated by the New Year’s Gang, aka Vanguard of the Revolution, who demanded that a Milwaukee Black Panther official be released from police custody, ROTC be expelled from the UW campus, and “women’s hours” be abolished on campus. The entire New Year’s Gang fled to Canada the evening of the explosion. Four men were charged with this crime: Karleton Armstrong, David Fine, Dwight Armstrong, and Leo Burt. All but Burt were captured and served time for their participation. Leo Burt remains at large.[Source: On Wisconsin Summer 2005]

A Google a Day asks a question about art:

Many of the cave paintings at Lascaux show the animals with heads in profile, but with horns facing forward. This is an example of what convention of representation?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-two. Sunrise is 6:10 and sunset 7:44, for 13h 33m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 57.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Friday FW poll asked readers what they thought of a koala chasing a farmer’s ATV: was it a singular incident, or a harbinger of a koala war? A bit over sixty-three percent of respondents said that the incident was likely a harbinger of a koala war.

A commenter speculated that if koalas can’t swim, they’ll not be able to invade continents beyond Australia. Unfortunately for humanity, one reads that koalas can swim (but have difficulty climbing the sides of pools, for example, once they’re in). We’ll need a better defense than a water barrier, especially if these fanatical marsupials develop a fondness for swimming or floating on the open ocean.

On this day in 1784, for a brief time, North America is home to a would-be country called Franklin:

…four counties in western North Carolina declare their independence as the state of Franklin. The counties lay in what would eventually become Tennessee.

The previous April, the state of North Carolina had ceded its western land claims between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River to the United States Congress. The settlers in this area, known as the Cumberland River Valley, had formed their own independent government from 1772 to 1777 and were concerned that Congress would sell the territory to Spain or France as a means of paying off some of the government’s war debt. As a result, North Carolina retracted its cession and began to organize an administration for the territory.

Simultaneously, representatives from Washington, Sullivan, Spencer (modern-day Hawkins) and Greene counties declared their independence from North Carolina. The following May, the counties petitioned for statehood as “Frankland” to the United States Congress. A simple majority of states favored acceptance of the petition, but it fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass, even after the counties’ changed their proposed name to “Franklin” in an attempt to curry Benjamin Franklin’s and others’ favor.

In defiance of Congress, Franklin survived as an independent nation for four years with its own constitution, Indian treaties and legislated system of barter in lieu of currency, though after only two years, North Carolina set up its own parallel government in the region. Finally, Franklin’s weak economy forced its governor, John Sevier, to approach the Spanish for aid. North Carolina, terrified of having a Spanish client state on its border, arrested Sevier. When Cherokee, Chickamauga and Chickasaw began to attack settlements within Franklin’s borders in 1788, it quickly rejoined North Carolina to gain its militia’s protection from attack.

Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in town will be sunny with a high of eighty-two.  Sunrise is 6:09 and sunset 7:45, for 13h 36m 13s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

What does sound look like?  It looks like this —

On his arrival at Hartford the President was welcomed by a committee of representative citizens, and then taken for a drive around the city, occupying, with Col. Jacob L. Greene, a handsome victoria automobile, in charge of two expert New York chauffeurs. He was enthusiastically cheered all along the route.

The President expressed his satisfaction at the substitution of drives, for conventional handshaking. this method of entertainment seems to have given the people the opportunity desired of seeing him.

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday will be partly cloudy and warm, with a high of eighty-three. Sunrise is 6:08 and sunset 7:47, for 13h 38m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 37.!% of its visible disk illuminated.

William James “Count” Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984)^[1] was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens. Dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a local movie theater in his home town of Red Bank, New Jersey. By 16 he increasingly played jazz piano at parties, resorts and other venues. In 1924 he went to Harlem, where his performing career expanded; he toured with groups to the major jazz cities of Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. In 1929 he joined Bennie Moten‘s band in Kansas City, and played with them until Moten’s death in 1935.

That year Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two “split” tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry “Sweets” Edison and singers Jimmy Rushingand Joe Williams. Basie’s theme songs were “One O’Clock Jump“, developed in 1935 in the early days of his band, and later “April in Paris“.

Here’s the final game in this week’s Puzzability series:

This Week’s Game — August 17-21

Kings and Queens

We’re melding royal pairs this week. For each day, we started with the first name of a famous person whose last name is King, and also a word that can be followed by “queen” to get a familiar phrase or title. Each day’s clue shows the King name and the queen word melded together in a string of letters, with each in order but intermingled with the other.

Example:

VAILRAGNIN

Answer:

Alan/virgin

What to Submit:

Submit the King name and the queen word, in that order (as “Alan/virgin” in the example), for your answer.

Friday, August 21

BECAAUROTLYE

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in the Whippet City will be cloudy with a high of sixty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:07 and sunset is 6:48, for  13h 41m 34s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with  27.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission meets this evening at  6:30 PM.

On this day in 1911, in a communications first, a telegram travels round the world:

…a dispatcher in the New York Times office sends the first telegram around the world via commercial service.

The Times decided to send its 1911 telegram in order to determine how fast a commercial message could be sent around the world by telegraph cable. The message, reading simply “This message sent around the world,” left the dispatch room on the 17th floor of the Times building in New York at 7 p.m. on August 20. After it traveled more than 28,000 miles, being relayed by 16 different operators, through San Francisco, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Saigon, Singapore, Bombay, Malta, Lisbon and the Azores–among other locations–the reply was received by the same operator 16.5 minutes later. It was the fastest time achieved by a commercial cablegram since the opening of the Pacific cable in 1900 by the Commercial Cable Company.

On this day in 1794, Americans under the command of Anthony Wayne win a victory that reduces British influence in the frontier:

1794 – Battle of Fallen Timbers

On this date American troops under General “Mad” Anthony Wayne defeated a confederation of Indian forces led by Little Turtle of the Miamis and Blue Jacket of the Shawnees. Wayne’s soldiers, who included future Western explorer William Clark and future President William Henry Harrison, won the battle in less than an hour with the loss of some 30 men killed. (The number of Indian casualties is uncertain.) The battle had several far-reaching consequences for the United States and what would later become the state of Wisconsin. The crushing defeat of the British-allied Indians convinced the British to finally evacuate their posts in the American west (an accession explicitly given in the Jay Treaty signed some three months later), eliminating forever the English presence in the early American northwest and clearing the way for American expansion. The battle also resulted in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, in which the defeated Indians ceded to Wayne the right of Americans to settle in the Ohio Valley (although the northwestern area of that country was given to the Indians). Wayne’s victory opened the gates of widespread settlement of the Old Northwest, Wisconsin included. [Source: American History Illustrated, Feb. 1969]

Here’s Thursday’s game from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — August 17-21

Kings and Queens

We’re melding royal pairs this week. For each day, we started with the first name of a famous person whose last name is King, and also a word that can be followed by “queen” to get a familiar phrase or title. Each day’s clue shows the King name and the queen word melded together in a string of letters, with each in order but intermingled with the other.

Example:

VAILRAGNIN

Answer:

Alan/virgin

What to Submit:

Submit the King name and the queen word, in that order (as “Alan/virgin” in the example), for your answer.

Thursday, August 20

RDORDANEMAY