Good morning, Whitewater.

June ends for Whitewater with partly cloudy skies and a high of seventy-six. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset 8:37, for 15h 17m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today is the anniversary, from 1908, of the Tunguska (Siberia) event:

The Tunguska event was a large explosion, caused by an asteroid or comet, which occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, at about 07:14 KRAT (00:14 UT) on June 30 [O.S. June 17], 1908.^[1][2][3] The explosion occurred at an altitude of 5–10 kilometres (3–6 mi) at 60.886°N, 101.894°E. It is classified as an impact event even though the object is believed to have burst in the air rather than hit the surface.^[4] Different studies have yielded widely varying estimates of the impacting object’s size, on the order of 60 m (200 ft) to 190 m (620 ft).^[5] It is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history.

Since the 1908 event, there have been an estimated 1,000 scholarly papers (mainly in Russian) published on the Tunguska explosion. Many scientists have participated in Tunguska studies: the best known are Leonid Kulik, Yevgeny Krinov, Kirill Florensky, Nikolai Vladimirovich Vasiliev, and Wilhelm Fast. In 2013, a team of researchers led by Victor Kvasnytsya of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine published analysis results of micro-samples from a peat bog near the center of the affected area showing fragments that may be of meteoritic origin.^[6][7]

Estimates of the energy of the blast range from as low as three to as high as 30 megatons of TNT (between 13 and 130 PJ).^[8][9] Most likely it was between 10 and 15 megatons of TNT (42 and 63 PJ),^[9] and if so, the energy of the explosion was about 1,000 times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan; roughly equal to that of the United States’ Castle Bravo ground-based thermonuclear test detonation on March 1, 1954; and about two-fifths that of the Soviet Union‘s later Tsar Bomba (the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated).^[10]

It is estimated that the Tunguska explosion knocked down some 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi), and that the shock wave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. An explosion of this magnitude would be capable of destroying a large metropolitan area,^[11] but due to the remoteness of the location, no fatalities were documented. This event has helped to spark discussion of asteroid impact avoidance.

Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game:

This Week’s Game — June 29-July 3

One Nation, Divisible

Get out your red, white, and blue-ray for this week’s filmfest. 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 a movie title that includes a word evoking the July 4th holiday—a different such word every day.

Example:

“We hold ___ truths to be self-evident” / “Fourscore and seven years ___” / composer of The Merry Widow / public defamation, legally / uninhibited part of the psyche

Answer:

The Eagle Has Landed (these / ago / Lehar / slander / id)

What to Submit:

Submit the movie title and the smaller words (as “The Eagle Has Landed (these / ago / Lehar / slander / id)” in the example) for your answer.

Tuesday, June 30

Light, fine rain / word maven William / passenger section of a train / person who circumvents computer security

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in town will be cloudy, with a high of seventy-six, and a probability of afternoon thundershowers.  Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset 8:37, for 15h 17m 50s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 91.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1943, Pres. Roosevelt writes to Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, then working with other scientists on the development of an atomic bomb.  Roosevelt marks his letter ‘secret,’ and needless to say never mentions the particulars of the project or any code names used for it:

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON
June 29, 1943

SECRET

My dear Dr. Oppenheimer:

I have recently reviewed with Dr. Bush the highly important and secret program of research, development and manufacture with which you are familiar. I was very glad to hear of the excellent work which is being done in a number of places in this country under the immediate supervision of General L.R. Groves and the general direction of the Committee of which Dr. Bush is Chairman. The successful solution of the problem is of the utmost importance to the national safety, and I am confident that the work will be completed in as short a time as possible as the result of the wholehearted cooperation of all concerned.

I am writing to you as the leader of one group which is to play a vital role in the months ahead. I know that you and your colleagues are working on a hazardous matter under unusual circumstances. The fact that the outcome of your labors is of such great significance to the nation requires that this program be even more drastically guarded than other highly secret war development. I have therefore given directions that every precaution be taken to insure the security of your project and feel sure that those in charge will see that these orders are carried out. You are fully aware of the reasons why your endeavors and those of your associates must be circumscribed by very special restrictions. Nevertheless, I wish you would express to the scientists assembled with you my deep appreciation of their willingness to undertake the tasks which lie before them in spite of the dangers and the personal sacrifices. I am sure that we can rely on their continued wholehearted and unselfish labors. Whatever the enemy may be planning, American science will be equal to the challenge. With this thought in mind, I send this note of confidence and appreciation.

Though there are other important groups at work, I am writing only to you as the leader of one which is operating under very special conditions, and to General Groves. While this letter is secret, the contents of it may be disclosed to your associates under pledge of secrecy.

Very Sincerely Yours

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer
Post Office Box 1663
Santa Fe,
New Mexico

Here’s the first game in Puzzability‘s Independence Day themed series, One Nation, Divisible:

This Week’s Game — June 29-July 3

One Nation, Divisible

Get out your red, white, and blue-ray for this week’s filmfest. 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 a movie title that includes a word evoking the July 4th holiday—a different such word every day.

Example:

“We hold ___ truths to be self-evident” / “Fourscore and seven years ___” / composer of The Merry Widow / public defamation, legally / uninhibited part of the psyche

Answer:

The Eagle Has Landed (these / ago / Lehar / slander / id)

What to Submit:

Submit the movie title and the smaller words (as “The Eagle Has Landed (these / ago / Lehar / slander / id)” in the example) for your answer.

Monday, June 29

Treaty / Puerto ___ / garb for a Roman senator / New York’s National League team

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday will be sunny in the morning, but increasingly cloudy as the day goes on, with an even chance of thunderstorms in the late afternoon, and a high of seventy-six. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset is 8:37, for 15h 18m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

An overwhelming majority of respondents to the FW Friday Poll, a poll that asked whether kangaroos should be permitted as service animals, said that they should not be allowed.

Whatever the merits of kangaroos as service animals for people, they’re not always accommodating to others of their own species:

On this day in 1919, the First World War formally ends with the principal warring nations’ signing of the Treaty of Versailles. German representatives were without a spirit of conciliation to that treaty’s stringent terms:

Versailles, June 28, (Associated Press.)–Germany and the allied and associated powers signed the peace terms here today in the same imperial hall where the Germans humbled the French so ignominiously forty-eight years ago.

This formally ended the world war, which lasted just thirty-seven days less than five years. Today, the day of peace, was the fifth anniversary of the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serbian student at Serajevo.

The peace was signed under circumstances which somewhat dimmed the expectations of those who had worked and fought during long years of war and months of negotiations for its achievement.

Absence of the Chinese delegates, who at the last moment were unable to reconcile themselves to the Shantung settlement, struck the first discordant note. A written protest which General Smuts lodged with his signature was another disappointment.

But bulking larger than these was the attitude of Germany and the German plenipotentiaries, which left them, as evident from the expression of M. Clemenceau, still outside of formal reconciliation and made the actual restoration to regular relations and intercourse with the allied nations dependent, not upon the signature of the “preliminaries of peace” today, but upon ratification by the National Assembly….

On this day in 1832, Gen. Atkinson leads thousands in the Black Hawk War:

1832 – Atkinson starts up Rock River in Black Hawk War

On this date General Henry Atkinson and the Second Army began its trip into the Wisconsin wilderness in a major effort against Black Hawk. The “Army of the Frontier” was formed of 400 U.S. Army Regulars and 2,100 volunteer militiamen in order to participate in the Black Hawk War. The troops were headed toward the Lake Koshkonong area where the main camp of the British Band was rumored to be located. [Source: Along the Black Hawk Trail by William F. Stark, p. 93-94]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset 8:37, for 15h 18m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 77.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1972, Nolan Bushnell incorporated Atari:

Atari (from a Japanese verb meaning “to hit the target” or “a success”) is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972, currently by Atari Interactive, a subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA(ASA).^[1][2][3] The original Atari, Inc. founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company’s products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.

In 1984, the original Atari Inc. was split due to its role in the video game crash of 1983, and the arcade division was turned into Atari Games Inc.^[4] Atari Games received the rights to use the logo and brand name with appended text “Games” on arcade games, as well as rights to the original 1972–1984 arcade hardware properties. The Atari Consumer Electronics Division properties were in turn sold to Jack Tramiel’s Tramel Technology Ltd., which then renamed itself to Atari Corporation.^[5][6] In 1996, Atari Corporation reverse-merged with disk-drive manufacturer JT Storage (JTS),^[7] becoming a division within the company.

In 1998, Hasbro Interactive acquired all Atari Corporation related properties from JTS,^[8] creating a new subsidiary, Atari Interactive.^[9] Infogrames Entertainment (IESA) bought Hasbro Interactive in 2001 and renamed it to Infogrames Interactive, later Atari Interactive in 2003, when Infogrames Inc. licensed the Atari name and logo from the latter and changed its name to Atari Inc.,^[2][10][11] a name used for a company founded in 1993 as GT Interactive, which IESA also renamed to Infogrames, Inc. and acquired a 62% controlling interest in by 1999.^[12] After IESA’s acquisition of Hasbro Interactive, Infogrames, Inc. intermittently published Atari branded titles for Infogrames Interactive. On October 11, 2008, Infogrames completed its acquisition of Atari, Inc., making it a wholly owned subsidiary.^[13]

On this day in 1837, Wisconsin’s now-oldest newspaper begins publishing:

1837 – The Milwaukee Sentinel Founded

On this date the Milwaukee Sentinel, the oldest newspaper in the state, was founded as a weekly publication by Solomon Juneau, who also was Milwaukee’s first mayor. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride, p. 19]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday in town will be cloudy with a high of seventy-two. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset is 20:37, for 15h 19m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 69.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1948, Americans and others begin transporting vital goods to West Berlin following a Soviet blockade:

The Berlin Blockade (1 April 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies‘ railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutschmark from West Berlin. In response, the Western Allies organized the Berlin airlift to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin, a difficult feat given the city’s population.^[1][2] Aircrews from the United States Air Force, the British Royal Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the South African Air Force^[3]:338 flew over 200,000 flights in one year, providing to the Berliners up to 8,893 tons of necessities each day, such as fuel and food.^[4] As neither side wanted a war, the Soviets did not disrupt the airlift.^[5]

By the spring of 1949 the airlift was clearly succeeding, and by April it was delivering more cargo than had previously been transported into the city by rail. On 12 May 1949, the USSR lifted the blockade of West Berlin. The Berlin Crisis of 1948–1949 served to highlight the competing ideological and economic visions for postwar Europe….

On 24 June 1948 LeMay appointed Brigadier General Joseph Smith, headquarters commandant for USAFE at Camp Lindsey, as the Provisional Task Force Commander of the airlift. Smith had been chief of staff in LeMay’s B-29 command in India during World War II and had no airlift experience. On 25 June 1948 Clay gave the order to launch Operation Vittles. The next day 32 C-47s lifted off for Berlin hauling 80 tons of cargo, including milk, flour, and medicine.

Here’s the last game in this week’s Puzzability series, Colorful Characters:

This Week’s Game — June 22-26

Colorful Characters

Would you like to join our rainbow coalition? For each day this week, we started with the name of a color and formed a new word that’s a type of person that has “consonantcy” with the color—a word with all the same consonants, in the same order, but a different set of vowels, which can appear anywhere in the word. (The letter Y is not used in any words here.) The resulting two-word phrase, with the color first, is described in each day’s clue.

Example:

Dark red leatherneck

Answer:

Maroon marine

What to Submit:

Submit the two-word phrase (as “Maroon marine” in the example) for your answer.

Friday, June 26

Deep blue constant pesterer