Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a high of thirty-five in town today, with a one-in-five chance of rain or snow showers in the later afternoon. Sunrise is 7:16 AM and sunset 4:56 PM, for 9h 39m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 12.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1957, Wham-O begins producing a new toy:

…machines at the Wham-O toy company roll out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs–now known to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees.

The story of the Frisbee began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where William Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company in 1871. Students from nearby universities would throw the empty pie tins to each other, yelling “Frisbie!” as they let go. In 1948, Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni invented a plastic version of the disc called the “Flying Saucer” that could fly further and more accurately than the tin pie plates. After splitting with Franscioni, Morrison made an improved model in 1955 and sold it to the new toy company Wham-O as the “Pluto Platter”–an attempt to cash in on the public craze over space and Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

In 1958, a year after the toy’s first release, Wham-O–the company behind such top-sellers as the Hula-Hoop, the Super Ball and the Water Wiggle–changed its name to the Frisbee disc, misspelling the name of the historic pie company. A company designer, Ed Headrick, patented the design for the modern Frisbee in December 1967, adding a band of raised ridges on the disc’s surface–called the Rings–to stabilize flight. By aggressively marketing Frisbee-playing as a new sport, Wham-O sold over 100 million units of its famous toy by 1977….

It was an accomplishment, perhaps, that started like this:

Google-a-Day asks a history question:

When the president of Haiti fled the country following a 1991 coup, in what country did he first find asylum?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in town will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-one. Sunrise is 7:17 AM and sunset 4:55 PM, for 9h 37m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1970, the first jumbo jet enters commercial service:

….On January 15, 1970, First Lady of the United States Pat Nixon christened Pan Am’s first 747, at Dulles International Airport (later Washington Dulles International Airport) in the presence of Pan Am chairman Najeeb Halaby. Instead of champagne, red, white, and blue water was sprayed on the aircraft. The 747 entered service on January 22, 1970, on Pan Am’s New York–London route;[61] the flight had been planned for the evening of January 21, but engine overheating made the original aircraft unusable. Finding a substitute delayed the flight by more than six hours to the following day.[2]

On the 747-100 and 747-200, a spiral staircase connected the main and upper decks. Previously, Boeing used a spiral staircase in its Model 377 Stratocruiser back in 1946.

The 747 enjoyed a fairly smooth introduction into service, overcoming concerns that some airports would not be able to accommodate an aircraft that large.[62] Although technical problems occurred, they were relatively minor and quickly solved.[63] After the aircraft’s introduction with Pan Am, other airlines that had bought the 747 to stay competitive began to put their own 747s into service.[64] Boeing estimated that half of the early 747 sales were to airlines desiring the aircraft’s long range rather than its payload capacity.[65][66] While the 747 had the lowest potential operating cost per seat, this could only be achieved when the aircraft was fully loaded; costs per seat increased rapidly as occupancy declined. A moderately loaded 747, one with only 70 percent of its seats occupied, used more than 95 percent of the fuel needed by a fully occupied 747.[67]….

On this day in 1964, Wisconsin produces a really big piece of cheese:

1964 – World’s Largest Block of Cheese Produced
On this date The world’s largest cheese of the time was manufactured in Wisconsin. The block of cheddar was produced from 170,000 quarts of milk by the Wisconsin Cheese Foundation specifically for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It weighed 34,665 pounds (17.4 tons). The cheese was consumed in 1965 at the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Cheesemakers Association at Eau Claire. A replica is displayed in Neilsville in the specially designed “Cheesemobile”, a semi-tractor trailer in which the original cheese toured. [Source: American Profile, December 16, 2001]

Google-a-Day asks a question about American history:

Who is generally regarded as one of the very first Americans to die in the struggle for liberty from British Rule?

Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have snow today, in town, but less than an inch of accumulation. Our high temperature today will be thirty-two degrees. Sunrise is 7:18 AM and sunset 4:54 PM, for 9h 35m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1924, Lenin drops dead, too late to prevent the establishment of a murderous and tyrannical state:

In 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire in becoming the Soviet Union, with Lenin as its head of government. Only 13 months later, after being incapacitated by a series of strokes, Lenin died at his home in Gorki.

For a sad but thorough account of Lenin’s legacy, one could consult The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, a scholarly account of leninist policies’ responsibility for the deaths of tens of millions.

On January 21, 1935, Janesville’s next generation gets in trouble:

1935 – Five Janesville Youths Arrested
On this date five Janesville boys, ages 13-16, were arrested for a string of burglaries, including the thefts of cigarettes, whisky and blankets. While in the police station, one of the boys tried to crack the safe in the chief’s office. [Source: Janesville Gazette]

Google-a-Day asks a baseball question:

One of the greatest baseball players of all time was banned from the game for life after he and seven other players accepted bribes to throw a game in what year?

Good morning, Whitewater.

We will have a wintry mix this morning, on a day with a high of thirty-four. Later tonight we will likely see at least an inch of snowfall. Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset 6:52 PM, for 9h 33m 42s of daytime. It’s a new moon today.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM. Among the items on the agenda is a reading of a Complete Streets initiative, so that in future designs planners will take account of pedestrians and cyclists, for example, when building or reconstructing streets. I would hope readers would support the proposal. See, In Support of the Complete Streets Initiative for Whitewater.

Industrialist Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been designing private alternatives for human and cargo transportation to Earth orbit. SpaceX is trying to build a rocket, the Falcon 9, that could land upright after launch, so that it might be reused cheaply. Cheaper spaceflight, needless to say, would mean more spaceflight, and more exploration or industry in orbit. SpaceX’s recent test of a reusable Falcon 9 failed, but it was a near miss – even on an early test, Musk is close to his goal.

Here’s a clip of that test, and although it failed, even on this try it was very close to succeeding (the rocket found its small target even after flight). There’s reason to believe that Musk will succeed, and soon —

On this day in 1981, the Iran hostage crisis ends:

Minutes after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as the 40th president of the United States, the 52 U.S. captives held at the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran, are released, ending the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis….

President Jimmy Carter was unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis, and on April 24, 1980, he ordered a disastrous rescue mission in which eight U.S. military personnel were killed and no hostages rescued. Three months later, the former shah died of cancer in Egypt, but the crisis continued. In November 1980, Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Soon after, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations began between the United States and Iran. On the day of Reagan’s inauguration, the United States freed almost $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets, and the hostages were released after 444 days. The next day, Jimmy Carter flew to West Germany to greet the Americans on their way home.

Google-a-Day asks a geography question:

The mountain range extending along the northern frontier of India was formed as the result of a collision of the Indian subcontinent and what other continent?