Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny and clear, with a high of eighty. Sunrise is 5:49 and sunset 8:12, for 14h 23m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 87.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1958, the USS Nautilus completes a trip beneath the Arctic icecap:

USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the world’s first operational nuclear-powered submarine. The vessel was the first submarine to complete a submerged transit to the North Pole on 3 August 1958. Sharing names with Captain Nemo‘s fictional submarine in Jules Verne‘s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and named after anotherUSS Nautilus (SS-168) that served with distinction in World War II, Nautilus was authorized in 1951 and launched in 1954. Because her nuclear propulsion allowed her to remain submerged far longer than diesel-electric submarines, she broke many records in her first years of operation, and traveled to locations previously beyond the limits of submarines. In operation, she revealed a number of limitations in her design and construction. This information was used to improve subsequent submarines.

Nautilus was decommissioned in 1980 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982. The submarine has been preserved as a museum of submarine history inGroton, Connecticut, where the vessel receives some 250,000 visitors a year.

A Google a Day asks a question about history:

What Frankish ruler is associated with the Carolingian Renaissance?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be partly cloudy, with a high of ninety, and strong scattered thunderstorms in the late afternoon.

When a bison at a national park attacks a tourist, as happens now and again, whose fault is that?  In the FW poll for Friday, 77.27% of respondents said the park visitors should be responsible, 18.18% said the park should be responsible, and 4.55% said the bison should be responsible.  If it should be the bison’s responsibility, perhaps that leads to a recipe.

On this day in 1865, the crew of the Shenandoah finally accept news of the South’s surrender:

The captain and crew of the C.S.S. Shenandoah, still prowling the waters of the Pacific in search of Yankee whaling ships, is finally informed by a British vessel that the South has lost the war.

The Shenandoah was the last major Confederate cruiser to set sail. Launched as a British vessel in September 1863, it was purchased by the Confederates and commissioned in October 1864. The 230-foot-long craft was armed with eight large guns and a crew of 73 sailors. Commanded by Captain James I. Waddell, theShenandoah steered toward the Pacific and targeted Yankee whaling ships. Waddell enjoyed great success, taking six ships in the South Pacific before slipping into Melbourne, Australia, for repairs in January 1865.

Within a month, the Shenandoah was back on the loose, wreaking havoc in the waters around Alaska. The Rebel ship captured 32 additional Union vessels, most of which were burned. The damage was estimated at $1.6 million, a staggering figure in such a short period of time. Although the crew heard rumors that the Confederate armies had surrendered, Waddell continued to fight. He finally accepted an English captain’s report on August 2, 1865. The Shenandoah pulled off another remarkable feat by sailing from the northern Pacific all the way to Liverpool, England, without stopping at any ports. Arriving on November 6, Waddell surrendered his ship to British officials.

On this day in 1832, war in the Midwest ends:

1832 – Black Hawk War Ends

On this date the defeat of Black Hawk and his followers at the Battle of Bad Axe, ended the Black Hawk War. Black Hawk led the American troops northward while the rest of the Indians constructed rafts and canoes to facilitate an escape over the Mississippi river. The plan was successful initially but eventually General Atkinson realized the ruse. In the battle, women, children and the elderly hid behind rocks and logs and American soldiers often could not or did not differentiate between warriors and the women and children. Atkinson sent Wabasha and his Sioux warriors, enemies of the Sauk, after the approximately 150 members of the British Band that made it to the Western bank of the Mississippi. The Sauk, “escaped the best they could, and dispersed“, but only 22 women and childern were spared. Black Hawk escaped, but the Battle of Bad Axe marked the end of the war. [Source: Along the Black Hawk Trail by William F. Stark, p.142-153]

 

Good morning, Whitewater.

A new month begins with partly cloudy skies and a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 5:46 and sunset 8:15, for 14h 28m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this month in 1774, British scientist Joseph Priestly discovers a new gas, one that proves to be oxygen:

In August 1774 he isolated an “air” that appeared to be completely new, but he did not have an opportunity to pursue the matter because he was about to tour Europe with Shelburne. While in Paris, however, Priestley managed to replicate the experiment for others, including French chemist Antoine Lavoisier. After returning to Britain in January 1775, he continued his experiments and discovered “vitriolic acid air” (sulphur dioxide, SO2).
In March he wrote to several people regarding the new “air” that he had discovered in August. One of these letters was read aloud to the Royal Society, and a paper outlining the discovery, titled “An Account of further Discoveries in Air”, was published in the Society’s journal Philosophical Transactions.[101] Priestley called the new substance “dephlogisticated air”, which he made in the famous experiment by focusing the sun’s rays on a sample of mercuric oxide. He first tested it on mice, who surprised him by surviving quite a while entrapped with the air, and then on himself, writing that it was “five or six times better than common air for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and, I believe, every other use of common atmospherical air”.[102] He had discovered oxygen gas (O2).

On this day in 1832, a ship prevents Black Hawk’s escape across the Mississippi:

1832 – Black Hawk’s Escape Across Mississippi Blocked
On this date the armed steamboat the Warrior reached the British Band on the Mississippi where they hoped to cross the river and escape the American troops. After being guided by a Sioux Indian, the ship which held an artillery piece, dropped anchor, making the Sauk escape virtually impossible. Black Hawk attempted to surrender to the Warrior, waving a white cloth, but the crew either did not understand or did not accept the message. The ship and its men opened fire, killing a number of unprepared Indians. [Source: Along the Black Hawk Trail by William F. Stark, p. 140-141]

Good morning, Whitewater.

July ends with sunny skies and a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 5:45 and sunset 8:16, for 14h 30m 36s of daytime. We’ve a full moon tonight.

Of the moon, on this day in 1964 America’s Ranger 7 spacecraft spent back pictures of the lunar surface, more detailed than any seen before:

Pasadena, Calif., July 31 – Ranger 7 radioed to earth today the first close-up pictures of the moon – a historic collection of 4,000 pictures one thousand times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes.

Scientists here were hailing the achievement, which exceeded all expectations, as by far the greatest advance in lunar astronomy since Galileo.

They said the pictures not only represented a great leap in man’s knowledge of the moon, but also, on a more practical level, lent encouragement that the lunar surface was suitable for Project Apollo’s manned lunar landings.

The still pictures were snapped and transmitted in the last 17 minutes before the spacecraft [by design crashed] into an area northwest of the Sea of Clouds.

They meant in effect that the 240,000-mile distance to the moon had been shrunk by man’s ingenuity to a mere half-mile in terms of what he could see of its topography. They showed craters three feet in diameter and a foot to a foot and a half deep.

The best earthbound telescopes, handicapped by the shimmering mantle of the atmosphere, can shrink the lunar distance only to 500 miles and reveal features no smaller than about one-mile across.

On this day in 1967, Lake Geneva takes a stand for the preservation of Western civilization, assuring her place in history:

1967 – Lake Geneva Bans Go-Go Girls
On this date the Lake Geneva city government passed an ordinance banning go-go girls, dancers in bikinis, and swimsuit-clad waitresses from working in establishments that served alcohol. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Here’s Friday’s puzzle from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — July 27-31

Showstoppers

It’s curtains for us this week. For each day, we started with the title of a Broadway musical’s Act I closing number and replaced all the letters in each word—except the last letter—with asterisks. The name of the musical is presented the same way in parentheses.

Example:

******G ******Y (*****D)

Answer:

“Defying Gravity” (Wicked)

What to Submit:

Submit the song title and the musical’s title (as “Defying Gravity (Wicked)” in the example) for your answer.

Friday, July 31

***E ********D ******G (****H ******C)