Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in town will be warm, with afternoon sunshine and a high of seventy-one. Sunrise is 7:05 and sunset is 6:16, for 11h 11m 34s of daytime. We’ve a new moon today.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission will meet at 6:30 PM this evening.

On this day in 1492, Columbus reaches the New World:

After twenty-nine days out of sight of land, on October 7, 1492, the crew spotted “[i]mmense flocks of birds”, some of which his sailors trapped and determined to be “field” birds (probably Eskimo curlews andAmerican golden plovers). Columbus changed course to follow their flight.^[25]

Land was first sighted at two a.m. on October 12, 1492, by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodriguez Bermejo) aboard La Pinta.^[26] Columbus would later assert that he had first seen the land and, thus, earned the reward of 10,000 maravedís.^[27][28] Columbus called the island San Salvador, in the present-day Bahamas or Turks and Caicos, although the indigenous residents had already named it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas or Turks and Caicos this corresponds to is an unresolved topic; prime candidates are Samana Cay, Plana Cays, Grand Turk, or San Salvador Island(named San Salvador in 1925 in the belief that it was Columbus’ San Salvador)

The indigenous people he encountered in their homelands were peaceful and friendly. At the time of the European discovery of most of the islands of the Caribbean, three major indigenous peoples lived on the islands: the Taíno in the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas, and the Leeward Islands; the Island Caribs (Kalina) and Galibi in theWindward Islands and Guadeloupe; and the Ciboney (a Taíno people) and Guanahatabey of central and western Cuba, respectively. The Taínos are subdivided into Classic Taínos, who occupied Hispaniola and Puerto Rico; Western Taínos, who occupied Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahamian archipelago; and the Eastern Taínos, who occupied the Leeward Islands.^[29]Trinidad was inhabited by both Carib-speaking and Arawak-speaking groups. Most of modern Central America was part of theMesoamerican civilization. The Native American societies of Mesoamerica occupied the land ranging from central Mexico in the north to Costa Rica in the south. The cultures of Panama traded with both Mesoamerica and South America and can be considered transitional between those two cultural areas.

Columbus proceeded to observe the people and their cultural lifestyle. He also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, landing on October 28, 1492, and the northern coast of Hispaniola, present day Haiti and Dominican Republic, by December 5, 1492. Here, the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas Day, December 25, 1492, and had to be abandoned. Columbus was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus founded the settlement, La Navidad, leaving behind 39 men.

On January 15, 1493, he set sail for home by way of the Azores.

On this day in 1782, Henry Dodge is born:

On this date Territorial Governor Henry Dodge was born in Vincennes, Indiana. The son of Israel Dodge and Nancy Hunter, Henry Dodge was the first Territorial Governor of Wisconsin. Prior to this position, he served as Marshall and Brigadier General of the Missouri Territory, Chief Justice of the Iowa County (Wisconsin) Court. During the Black Hawk War of 1832 he led the Wisconsin militia who ultimately brought the conflict to its tragic end. He served as Territorial Governor from July 3, 1836 to October 5, 1841 and again from May 13, 1845 to June 7, 1848. He also served as U.S. Territorial Senator from 1841 to 1846. When Wisconsin was admitted to the Union as a State, dodge was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate; he was reelected in 1851 and served from June 8, 1848, to March 3, 1857. He was also twice nominated for President and once for Vice President, all of which he declined. Henry Dodge died on June 19, 1867 in Burlington, Iowa.

Puzzability begins a new series this week, entitled, Series Cancellations.  Here’s Monday’s game:

This Week’s Game — October 12-16

Series Cancellations

Let’s see what you can put together for this week’s TV viewing. For each day, we’ll give you a series of clues, each of which leads to a word. You must drop one letter out of each of these answer words and put them together (in order), adding spaces as needed, to get the full name of a current TV drama.

Example:

Macabre illustrator Edward / elf’s boss / rock opera by The Who

Answer:

Grey’s Anatomy (Gorey / Santa / Tommy)

What to Submit:

Submit the TV show’s name and the smaller words (as “Grey’s Anatomy (Gorey / Santa / Tommy)” in the example) for your answer.

Monday, October 12

Green light meaning / tiny role for a big star / obese / protagonist / what an anchorman delivers

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be sunny with a high of seventy-seven.  Sunrise is 7:04 and sunset 6:18, for 11h 14m 23s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 1.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW poll asked if readers would like Joe Biden to run for president (regardless of their motivation for wishing him to run).  A clear majority of respondents (65.22%) said that they would like him to run.

The Arrow Stork helped solve a problem of natural history:

Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a mostly sunny Saturday with a high of sixty-six.  Sunrise is 7:03 and sunset is 8:20, for 11h 17m 14s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 5.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Millions of Americans – and people around the world – have watched the original Pizza Rat video, in which a subway rat tries to carry a piece of pizza back to its lair. Well, there’s a sequel, in which the Pizza Rat battles a rival over a discarded slice of za:

It’s Thelonious Monk’s birthday:

Thelonious Sphere Monk^[2] (October 10, 1917^[3] – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including “‘Round Midnight“, “Blue Monk“, “Straight, No Chaser” “Ruby, My Dear“, “In Walked Bud“, and “Well, You Needn’t“. Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than 1,000 pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.^[4]

His compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk’s unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations.

He was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats, and sunglasses. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit observed at times during performances: while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.

Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time, after Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Duke Ellington, and before Wynton Marsalis.^[5][6]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-one. Sunrise is 7:10 and sunset 6:21, for 11h 20m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 10.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1635, the soon-to-be founder of Rhode Island is banished from Massachusetts:

Religious dissident Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the General Court of Massachusetts. Williams had spoken out against the right of civil authorities to punish religious dissension and to confiscate Indian land.

After leaving Massachusetts, Williams, with the assistance of the Narragansett tribe, established a settlement at the junction of two rivers near Narragansett Bay, located in present-day Rhode Island. He declared the settlement open to all those seeking freedom of conscience and the removal of the church from civil matters, and many dissatisfied Puritans came. Taking the success of the venture as a sign from God, Williams named the community “Providence.”

Among those who found a haven in the religious and political refuge of the Rhode Island Colony were Anne Hutchinson–like Williams, she had been exiled from Massachusetts for religious reasons–some of the first Jews to settle in North America, and the Quakers. In Providence, Roger Williams also founded the first Baptist church in America and edited the first dictionary of Native-American languages.

A Google a Day asks a history question:

Whose death did the commander of the Confederate forces say was like “losing my right arm”?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in town will be warm, with a high of seventy-six, and an even chance of afternoon thunderstorms.  Sunrise is 7:00 and sunset 6:23, for 11h 22m 56s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 17.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Millions of years ago, the great reptiles of this planet vanished from existence.  There were, however, other animals living at that time – including small mammals – that survived even as the dinosaurs waned into extinction.  Among them was Kimbetopsalis simmonsae:

While an asteroid impact, earthquakes and volcanoes wiped out much of life on earth, one survivor apparently emerged, a furry, buck-toothed creature science has dubbed Kimbetopsalis simmonsae.

Identified from fossils, the new species was a member of a group of mammals known as multituberculates, named for the many cusps, or tubercles, found on their teeth.

The rodent-like animals lived alongside the dinosaurs, but unlike the doomed reptilian giants, they managed to live for another 30 million years after the asteroid that pushed the dinosaurs off the evolutionary stage.

What was bad for the dinosaurs proved a boon to Kimbetopsalis, researchers explain.

After the asteroid impact pushed many species to extinction, “all this ecological space became available and the mammals went a bit nuts,” says University of Edinburgh paleontologist Sarah Shelley, co-author of a published study on the discovery.

Via Fossil Find Is Ancient Beaver-Like Mammal That Outlived The Dinosaurs @ Tech Times.

Go mammal, or go home, it seems.

On this day in 1871, fire devastates Chicago and Wisconsin:

The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871. The fire killed up to 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles (9 km²) of Chicago, Illinois, and left more than 100,000 residents homeless.^[1] Though the fire was one of the largestU.S. disasters of the 19th century, and destroyed much of the city’s central business district, Chicago was rebuilt and continued to grow as one of the most populous and economically important American cities. The same night the fire broke out, an even deadlier fire annihilated Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and other villages and towns north of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

The Peshtigo fire took more lives than any other in American history:

1871 – Peshtigo Fire

On this date Peshtigo, Wisconsin was devastated by a fire which took 1,200 lives. The fire caused over $2 million in damages and destroyed 1.25 million acres of forest. This was the greatest human loss due to fire in the history of the United States. The Peshtigo Fire was overshadowed by the Great Chicago fire which occurred on the same day, killing 250 people and lasting three days. While the Chicago fire is said to have started by a cow kicking over a lantern, it is uncertain how the Peshtigo fire began. [Source:Wisconsin Magazine of History].

A Google a Day asks a geography question:

What area with nearly 2 million life forms was created to protect the wildlife of the country with the largest economy in Africa?