Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 5:15 and sunset 8:32, for 15h 16m 54s of daytime. The moon is waning crescent with 40.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1692, Bridget Bishop becomes thew first person executed during the Salem witch trials:

Bishop was accused of bewitching five young women, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam, Jr., Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and Elizabeth Hubbard, on the date of her examination by the authorities, 19 April 1692.

A record was given of her trial by Cotton Mather in “The Wonders of the Invisible World.” In his book, Mather recorded that several people testified against Bishop, stating that the shape of Bishop would pinch, choke or bite them. The shape also threatened to drown one victim if she did not write her name in a certain book. During the trial, anytime Bishop would look upon one of those supposed to be tortured by her, they would be immediately struck down and only her touch would revive them. More allegations were made during the trial including that of a woman saying that the apparition of Bishop tore her coat, upon further examination her coat was found to be torn in the exact spot. Mather mentions that the truth of these many accusations carried too much suspicion, however.

William Stacy, a middle aged man in Salem Town, testified that Bishop had previously made statements to him that other people in the town considered her to be a witch. He confronted her with the allegation that she was using witchcraft to torment him, which she denied. Another local man, Samuel Shattuck, accused Bishop of bewitching his child and also of striking his son with a spade. He also testified that Bishop asked him to dye lace, which apparently was too small to be used on anything but a poppet (doll used in spell-casting). John and William Bly, father and son, testified about finding poppets in Bishop’s house and also about their pig that appeared to be bewitched, or poisoned, after a dispute with Bishop. Other victims of Bishop, as recorded by Mather, include Deliverance Hobbs, John Cook, Samuel Gray, Richard Coman, and John Louder.^{[citation needed]}

During her sentencing, a jury of women found a third nipple upon Bishop (a sure sign of witchcraft) but upon a second examination the nipple was not found. In the end Mather states that the biggest thing that condemned Bishop was the gross amount of lying she committed in court. According to Mather, “there was little occasion to prove the witchcraft, it being evident and notorious to all beholders.” Bishop was sentenced to death and hanged.

Here’s Puzzability‘s Wednesday game:

This Week’s Game — June 8-12

Disappearing Acts

They’re all trick questions this week. For each day, we started with the name of a magic or mentalist act as it would be billed. We removed all the letters that appear more than once, leaving just the singly occurring letters. Each day’s clue gives the unique letters in order (with any spaces removed), along with the word lengths of the act’s name in parentheses.

Example:

AYOUDN (5,7)

Answer:

Harry Houdini

What to Submit:

Submit the name (as “Harry Houdini” in the example) for your answer.

Wednesday, June 10

DOUHEI (4,7)

Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a sunny Tuesday in Whitewater with a high of eighty-six. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset 8:32, for 15h 16m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 52.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets at 5:30 PM this afternoon.

I’ve added a video to When Green Turns Brown, in response to a request, showing the principal discussion of Common Council on 6.2.15 regarding a public meeting about upgrades to Whitewater’s wastewater plant. The video is also available on the right sidebar of this page. (There’s a later discussion, toward the end of the 6.2.15 Council meeting, that’s worth posting and considering another time.) I’ve also updated yesterday’s post from the WGTB series to include the video.)

It’s worth mentioning again that When Green Turns Brown in a series about a small town’s digester energy project, based on the importation of waste from other cities into Whitewater. Other facility upgrades are not primarily a concern of this series, but are secondarily important only as they implicate managerial ability.

On this day in 1973, Secretariat became a Triple Crown winner by taking the Belmont Stakes. American Pharoah, of course, just won his own Triple Crown.

Here’s how the two horses ran the Belmont, with side by side video that the Wall Street Journal crafted:

On this date guitarist Les Paul (aka Lester Polfus) was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Best known for the guitar that bears his name, Les Paul was a country-music guitarist, jazz-pop musician and pioneer in music technology. In 1941, Paul built his first solid-body electric guitar and over the next decade he developed revolutionary engineering techniques such as close miking, echo delay, and multi-tracking. Paul was also well known for recording with his wife, singer Colleen Summers (a.k.a. Mary Ford).

Their biggest hits included “How High the Moon” (1951) and “Vaya Con Dios” (1953), both reaching #1. The recordings of Les Paul and Mary Ford were not only popular hits, they also showcased Paul’s pioneering use of overdubbing, or the layering of guitar parts one atop another. In 1952, Les Paul introduced the first eight-track tape recorder as well as the solid-body electric guitar he is known for. Built and marketed by Gibson, the Les Paul guitar has been used by such guitarists as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. [Source: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]

Here’s Tuesday’s game from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — June 8-12

Disappearing Acts

They’re all trick questions this week. For each day, we started with the name of a magic or mentalist act as it would be billed. We removed all the letters that appear more than once, leaving just the singly occurring letters. Each day’s clue gives the unique letters in order (with any spaces removed), along with the word lengths of the act’s name in parentheses.

Example:

AYOUDN (5,7)

Answer:

Harry Houdini

What to Submit:

Submit the name (as “Harry Houdini” in the example) for your answer.

Tuesday, June 9

AVCORFL (5,11)

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy, with a high of seventy-nine, and an even chance of thunderstorms in the late afternoon. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset 8:31, for 15h 15m 25s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 63.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1867, Frank Lloyd Wright is born in Richland Center:

Frank Lloyd Wright (born Frank Lincoln Wright, June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, interior designer, writer, and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was best exemplified by Fallingwater (1935), which has been called “the best all-time work of American architecture”.^[1] Wright was a leader of the Prairie Schoolmovement of architecture and developed the concept of the Usonian home, his unique vision for urban planning in the United States.

His work includes original and innovative examples of many building types, including offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums. Wright also designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass. Wright wrote 20 books and many articles and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe. His colorful personal life often made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire and murders at his Taliesin studio. Already well known during his lifetime, Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as “the greatest American architect of all time”.^[1]

Puzzability begins a new series, entitled Disappearing Acts:

This Week’s Game — June 8-12

Disappearing Acts

They’re all trick questions this week. For each day, we started with the name of a magic or mentalist act as it would be billed. We removed all the letters that appear more than once, leaving just the singly occurring letters. Each day’s clue gives the unique letters in order (with any spaces removed), along with the word lengths of the act’s name in parentheses.

Example:

AYOUDN (5,7)

Answer:

Harry Houdini

What to Submit:

Submit the name (as “Harry Houdini” in the example) for your answer.

Monday, June 8

SGFANOY (9,3,3)

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will bring scattered thunderstorms and a high of eighty-three. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset 8:31, for 15h 14m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 72.95 of its visible disk illuminated.

In Friday’s FW poll, respondents could decide whether a Maryland house allegedly filled with snakes, unbeknownst to the buyers at the time of purchase, was a lost investment or a bonus herpetarium. A large majority (90.91%) thought that it was a lost investment. So little love, it seems, for black rat snakes…

On this day in 1776, Richard Henry Lee from Virginia introduces a resolution before the Second Continental Congress:

In August 1774, Lee was chosen as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In Lee’s Resolution on the 7th of June 1776 during the Second Continental Congress, Lee put forth the motion to the Continental Congress to declare Independence from Great Britain, which read (in part):

Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

Lee had returned to Virginia by the time Congress voted on and adopted the Declaration of Independence, but he signed the document when he returned to Congress.

Lee later served as a president of Congress under the Articles of Confederation.

On this day in 1864, Union soldiers from Wisconsin enjoy a brief respite from the intense fighting of the Wilderness Campaign:

From May 31-June 12, 1864, more than 160,000 men clashed at Cold Harbor, Virginia, during the Wilderness Campaign. The 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 36th Wisconsin Infantry regiments took part. On June 7, the Iron Brigade regiments were moved to a position on the Union line where they were less exposed to enemy fire. “Our spirits rise wonderfully,” reported Col. Rufus Dawes. “It is impossible for one who has not undergone it, to fully understand the depression of spirits caused by such long, continued, and bloody fighting and work… We are having the first quiet day for more than a month.”

Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-five. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset 8:30, for 15h 13m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 82.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1944, Allied forces landed at Normandy, and the New York Times reported the news to its readers the following morning:

By Drew Middleton By Cable to The New York Times

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, Wednesday, June 7–The German Atlantic Wall has been breached.

Thousands of American, Canadian and British soldiers, under cover of the greatest air and sea bombardment of history, have broken through the “impregnable” perimeter of Germany’s “European fortress” in the first phase of the invasion and liberation of the Continent.

Comminiqué, issued at the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, before last midnight, reported that all initial landings, which had earlier been located on the coast of Normandy, in northern France, had “succeeded.” The Germans told of heavy fighting with Allied air-bone troops in Caen, road and railroad junction eight and one-half miles inland from the Seine Bay coast, and the enemy said there was heavy fighting at several points in a crescent-shaped front reaching from St. Vaast-la-Hougue, on the west, to Havre, on the east.

[The German Transocean News Agency said early Wednesday that the Allies had made “further landings at the mouth of the Orne under cover of naval artillery,” according to The Associated Press. The agency said “heavy fighting” was raging. [A British broadcast, recorded by Blue Network monitors, said Wednesday that “another air-borne landing south of Cherbourg has been reported.” Another British broadcast said that Allied bulldozers were busy “carving out the first RAF airfield on the coast of France.”]

At last midnight, just over twenty-four hours after the beginning of the operation, these were the salient points in the military situation:

1. Despite underwater obstacles and beach defenses, which in some areas extended for more than 1,000 yards inland, the Atlantic Wall has been breached by Allied infantry.

2. The largest air-borne force ever launched by the Allies has been successfully dropped behind the Atlantic Wall and has attacked by second echelon of German defenses vigorously. The Germans estimate this force at not less than four divisions, two American and two British, of paratroops and air-borne infantry.

3. Most of the German coastal batteries in the invasion area have been silenced by 10,000 tons of bombs and by shelling from 640 naval ships. The shelling was so intense that H M S Tanatside, a British destroyer, had exhausted all her ammunition by 8 o’ clock yesterday morning.

4. Against 7,500 sorties flown from Monday midnight to 8 A.M., Tuesday, by the Allied Air Forces during the first day of the invasion the Luftwaffe has flown fifty, and the main weight of the enemy air force in the west, estimated at 1,750 aircraft, has not entered the battle.

5. The first enemy naval assault on the Allied invasion armada was beaten off with the loss of one enemy trawler and severe damage to another.

There is reasonable optimism at this headquarters now, but there is no effort to disguise concern over several factors, among them weather and the shape of the first major German counter-blow.

What is for us, now, a matter of seemingly inevitable triumph was, for Americans then, a matter of uncertainty and personal worry, for the war effort and for the well-being their loved ones serving in it.

On this day in 1996, Congress authorizes Wisconsin to proceed with welfare reform:

On this date the U.S. House of Representatives voted 289-136 to approve H.R. 3562, the Wisconsin Only bill. This bill authorized the state of Wisconsin to implement its statewide welfare reform demonstration project, Wisconsin Works, or W-2. [Source: Library of Congress]