Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be sunny, with a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 5:34 and sunset 8:28, for 14h 54m 12s of daytime. The moon’s a waxing crescent with 11.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Friday’s FW poll asked whether readers would go for bacon-flavored seaweed. Among respondents, it was a close vote: 51.8% of respondents said they wouldn’t, but 48.15% of respondents said that they would.

On this day in 1799, Michel Ange Lancret, a member of French technical commission, reports on the French discovery of the Rosetta Stone:

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor differences among them), it provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Although it is believed to have originally been displayed within a temple, possibly at nearby Sais, the stone was probably moved during the early Christian or medieval period and was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta. It was rediscovered there in 1799 by a soldier, Pierre-François Bouchard, of the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt. As the first Ancient Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times, the Rosetta Stone aroused widespread public interest with its potential to decipher this previously untranslated ancient language. Lithographic copies and plaster casts began circulating among European museums and scholars. Meanwhile, British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, and the original stone came into British possession under the Capitulation of Alexandria. Transported to London, it has been on public display at the British Museum almost continuously since 1802. It is the most-visited object in the British Museum….

The find was announced to Napoleon’s newly founded scientific association in Cairo, the Institut d’Égypte, in a report by Commission member Michel Ange Lancret noting that it contained three inscriptions, the first in hieroglyphs and the third in Greek, and rightly suggesting that the three inscriptions would be versions of the same text. Lancret’s report, dated July 19, 1799, was read to a meeting of the Institute soon after July 25. Bouchard, meanwhile, transported the stone to Cairo for examination by scholars. Napoleon himself inspected what had already begun to be called la Pierre de Rosette, the Rosetta Stone, shortly before his return to France in August 1799.[9]

On this day (or perhaps the day before), American militia pursue the British Band (so called from Black Hawk’s earlier alliance with Britain):

1832 – Dodge and Henry pursue the British Band
On this date General James Henry and Colonel Henry Dodge found the trail of the British Band and began pursuit of Black Hawk and the Sauk Indians. Before leaving camp, the troops were told to leave behind any items that would slow down the chase. The troops camped that evening at Rock River, 20 miles east of present day Madison. Some sources place this event on July 18, 1832. [Source: Along the Black Hawk Trail by William F. Stark, p. 119]

Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a hot day in Whitewater, with a high of ninety-two, and a likelihood of scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon.  Sunrise is 5:33 and sunset 8:29, for 14h 55m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On July 18, 1999, David Cone of the New York Yankees pitched the 16th perfect game (no opposing batters reach first base) in Major League Baseball (MLB) history and the third in team history. Pitching against the Montreal Expos at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx in front of 41,930 fans in attendance, Cone retired all 27 batters that he faced. The game took 2 hours and 19 minutes, from 1:35 PM ET to 4:54 PM ET; the game was interrupted by a 33-minute rain delay in the bottom of the third inning in the middle of an at-bat for Tino Martinez. As part of the day’s “Yogi Berra Day” festivities honoring the Yankees’ former catcher, before the game, former Yankees pitcher Don Larsen threw the ceremonial first pitchto Berra; the two comprised the battery for Larsen’s perfect game in 1956.

Cone’s perfect game was the 247th no-hitter in MLB history, and 11th and last to date no-hitter in Yankees history. The previous perfect game in both MLB and Yankee history was 14 months prior on May 17, 1998, when David Wells pitched a perfect game against the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium; Wells’ perfect game was also the most recent no-hitter in franchise history at the time. Cone’s perfect game gave the Yankees the record for the franchise with most perfect games, breaking a two-perfect game tie with the Cleveland Indians. Since Cone’s perfecto, the Oakland Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies, and Chicago White Sox have recorded their second perfect games, with the White Sox tying the Yankees with a third perfect game in 2012. To date, Cone’s perfect game is the only one achieved in regular season interleague play.^[1]

On this day in 1921, a UW athlete wins at an inaugural NCAA meet:

1921 – UW Athlete Wins First NCAA Track Meet

On this date UW-Madison athlete Lloyd Wilder became the school’s first champion in the first NCAA track and field meet, held at the University of Chicago. Wilder cleared 12 feet in the pole vault to finish in a four-way tie for first. Tom Jones, who served as track coach at Wisconsin from 1913-48, initiated the first NCAA meet and was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1977. [Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday will be warm with a likelihood of thunderstorms, and a high of eighty-nine. Sunrise is 5:32 and sunset 8:29, for 14h 57m 32s of daytime. The moon is a taxi g crescent with 2.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1975, an American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock together in orbit:

1832 – Fort Koshkonong Construction Completed
On this date General Henry Atkinson wrote General Winfield Scott that he had finished constructing Fort Koshkonong. The fort, constructed of oak logs, was abandoned when the army pursued and defeated Black Hawk at the Battle of Bad Axe in August of 1832. The logs from the fort were then used in the construction of houses in the community now known as Fort Atkinson. By 1840, little of the original fort remained. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride, p. 107]

A Google a Day asks a question about science and business:

What company patented the invention of James Dewar, thus denying him the credit?

Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a probability of scattered thunderstorms toady, with a high of seventy-three. Sunrise is 5:31 and sunset 8:30, for 14h 59m 08s of daytime. We’ve a new moon again today, with just .2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, America successfully detonates an atomic bomb:

A pre-test explosion was conducted on 7 May 1945 to calibrate the instruments. A wooden test platform was erected 800 yards (730 m) from Ground Zero and piled with 100 long tons (100 t) of TNT spiked with nuclear fission products in the form of an irradiated uranium slug from Hanford, which was dissolved and poured into tubing inside the explosive. This explosion was observed by Oppenheimer and Groves’s new deputy commander, Brigadier General Thomas Farrell. The pre-test produced data that proved vital for the Trinity test.^[210][211]

For the actual test, the weapon, nicknamed “the gadget”, was hoisted to the top of a 100-foot (30 m) steel tower, as detonation at that height would give a better indication of how the weapon would behave when dropped from a bomber. Detonation in the air maximized the energy applied directly to the target, and generated less nuclear fallout. The gadget was assembled under the supervision of Norris Bradbury at the nearby McDonald Ranch House on 13 July, and precariously winched up the tower the following day.^[212] Observers included Bush, Chadwick, Conant, Farrell, Fermi, Groves, Lawrence, Oppenheimer and Tolman. At 05:30 on 16 July 1945 the gadget exploded with an energy equivalent of around 20 kilotons of TNT, leaving a crater of Trinitite (radioactive glass) in the desert 250 feet (76 m) wide. The shock wave was felt over 100 miles (160 km) away, and the mushroom cloud reached 7.5 miles (12.1 km) in height. It was heard as far away as El Paso, Texas, so Groves issued a cover story about an ammunition magazine explosion at Alamogordo Field.^[213][214]

On this day in 1941, Wisconsin gets a national wildlife refuge:

On this date the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge was established after a 20 year struggle by conservationists. The refuge is over 21,000 acres, encompasses the Horicon Marsh, the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States, and is home to over 223 species of birds and other wildlife. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride, p. 6 and Horicon National Wildlife Refuge]

A Google a Day asks a science question:

What explosion in the upper solar atmosphere releases about as much energy as millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding simultaneously?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in the Whippet City will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-eight. Sunrise is 5:30 and sunset 8:31, for 15h 00m 41s of daytime. We’ve a new moon.

During a live television and radio broadcast, President Richard Nixon stuns the nation by announcing that he will visit communist China the following year. The statement marked a dramatic turning point in U.S.-Chinese relations….

Following the advice of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Nixon hoped to use the promise of closer relations with the United States to convince the Chinese to put increased pressure on North Vietnam–a Chinese ally–to reach an acceptable peace settlement in the war. Other factors encouraging the visit included the constant demands of U.S. businesses for diplomatic relations with China so that its markets would open to American trade and investment; Nixon’s need for a dramatic act to revive his sagging popularity with the American people; and Kissinger’s hope that closer relations with China would make the Soviet Union more receptive to U.S. diplomatic initiatives. It was with these ideas in mind that Nixon announced on July 15, 1971, that he was going to make a “journey for peace” to communist China in May 1972, at the invitation of the Chinese government.

A Google a Day asks a history question:

What nation was the source of the missiles found aboard the Yemen-bound unflagged freighter intercepted by the Spanish SPS Navarra on December 9, 2002?