Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday will be cloudy in town, with rain in the afternoon, and a high of thirty-eight. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 01m 44s of daytime. We have a new moon, with less than one percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, Gen. Sherman gives Pres. Lincoln a Christmas gift:

Savannah, Ga., Dec. 22.

To His Excellency, President Lincoln:

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.

(Signed.) W. T. Sherman, Major-General

Steamer Golden Gate,

Savannah River, 7 P.M., Thursday, Dec. 22.

To Lieutenant-General Grant and Major-General H. W. Halleck:

I have the honor to report that I have just returned from General Sherman’s headquarters in Savannah.

I send Major Gray of my staff as bearer of dispatches from General Sherman to you, and also a message to the President.

The city of Savannah was occupied on the morning of the 21st. Gen. Hardee, anticipating the contemplated assault, escaped with the main body of his infantry and light artillery, on the morning of the 20th, by crossing the river to Union Causeway, opposite the city. The rebel iron- clads were blown up, and the Navy-yard was burned. All the rest of the city is intact, and contains twenty thousand citizens, quiet and well-disposed.

The captures includes eight hundred prisoners, one hundred and fifty guns, thirteen locomotives in good order, one hundred and ninety cars, a large supply of ammunition and materials of war, three steamers and thirty-three thousand bales of cotton safely stowed in warehouses.

All these valuable fruits of an almost bloodless victory have been, like Atlanta, fairly won.

I opened communication with the city with my steamers to-day, taking up what torpedoes we could see, and passing safely over others. Arrangements are made to clear the channel of all obstructions. Yours, & c.,

(Signed.) J. G. Foster, Major-General.

Google-a-Day asks a question about pop culture:

Rihanna got a tattoo across her fingers while wearing a piece of clothing with the face of what rock star?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-seven. Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 01m 40s of daytime. It’s a new moon today.

On the latest FW poll, about eggnog, 76.19% of respondents said yes to that holiday drink. That’s up from the 2013 FW eggnog poll, where 65.63% of respondents said that they’d go for eggnog. (My view has changed, too: in 2013 I voted against eggnog, but this year I went went for it in small amounts.)

On this day in 1968, America launches the first human expedition to the moon, for a trip around (but not to the surface) of Earth’s only natural satellite:

Apollo 8, the second human spaceflight mission in the United States Apollo space program, was launched on December 21, 1968, and became the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Earth’s Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. The three-astronaut crew — Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders — became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, the first to directly see the far side of the Moon, and then the first to witness Earthrise. The 1968 mission, the third flight of the Saturn V rocket and that rocket’s first manned launch, was also the first human spaceflight launch from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, located adjacent to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The mission was originally planned as Apollo 9, to be performed in early 1969 as the second test of the complete Apollo spacecraft, including the Lunar Module and the Command/Service Module in an elliptical medium Earth orbit. But when the Lunar Module proved unready to make its first test in a lower Earth orbit in December 1968, it was decided in August to fly Apollo 8 in December as a more ambitious lunar orbital flight without the Lunar Module. This meant Borman’s crew was scheduled to fly two to three months sooner than originally planned, leaving them a shorter time for training and preparation, thus placing more demands than usual on their time and discipline.

Apollo 8 took three days to travel to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast where they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8’s successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The crew was named Time magazine’s “Men of the Year” for 1968 upon their return.

On this day in 1862, Wisconsinites head for Vicksburg to support the Union campaign against that city:

1862 – (Civil War) The 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry sets out for Vicksburg
The 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry participated in Grierson’s Raid on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad in Tennessee. This was the first engagement in a movement by Union Col. Benjamin Grierson. It led 3,500 men on a 450-mile ride from Tennessee through Mississippi, arriving in Vicksburg on January 5, 1863.

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday, with a weekend of shopping before Christmas – brings to town a high of thirty with partly cloudy skies. Sunrise today is 7:21 AM and sunset is 4:23 PM, for 9h 01m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with eight percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On 12.19.1998, a time truly not so long ago that seems like ages ago, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached Pres. Clinton on charges of perjury & obstruction of justice:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19— William Jefferson Clinton was impeached on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice today by a divided House of Representatives, which recommended virtually along party lines that the Senate remove the nation’s 42d President from office.

A few hours after the vote, Mr. Clinton, surrounded by Democrats, walked onto the South Lawn of the White House, his wife, Hillary, on his arm, to pre-empt calls for his resignation. The man who in better days had debated where he would stand in the pantheon of American Presidents said he would stay in office and vowed ”to go on from here to rise above the rancor, to overcome the pain and division, to be a repairer of the breach.” Later, Mr. Clinton called off the bombing in Iraq, declaring the mission accomplished.

Mr. Clinton became only the second President in history to be impeached, in a stunning day that also brought the resignation of the incoming Speaker of the House, Robert L. Livingston.

At 1:22 P.M., the House of Representatives approved, 228 to 206, the first article of impeachment, accusing Mr. Clinton of perjury for misleading a Federal grand jury last Aug. 17 about the nature of his relationship with a White House intern, Monica S. Lewinsky. [Roll call, page 36.]

In the noisy House chamber, a lone Republican applauded. Five Republicans crossed party lines to vote against impeachment. Five Democrats broke with their party to support it.

On this day in 1813, Wisconsin’s first governor is born:

1813 – Nelson Dewey Born
On this date Nelson Dewey, the first governor of the state of Wisconsin, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut. The son of Ebenezer Dewey and Lucy Webster, Nelson arrived in the Wisconsin Territory in 1836. He studied law, began a legal and business career in Lancaster, and made a considerable sum of money in land and lead mining investments. At the age of 35, he became the first state governor and served two terms, from June 7, 1848 to January 5, 1852.

In later years, Dewey suffered misfortune. On Thanksgiving day, 1873, his mansion at Stonefield was gutted by fire, after which his wife and children moved to Europe for several years. In 1886 he began divorce proceedings against his wife on grounds of desertion but later dropped the suit. For more than 10 years Dewey lived alone. During the final 5 years of his life he had no contact with his family. He lost a fortune in a railroad deal and was ruined financially. In February 1889, he suffered a stroke while arguing a court case in Lancaster. Nelson Dewey died on July 21, 1889, in Cassville, where he is buried. [Source: First Ladies of Wisconsin-The Governors’ Wives by Nancy G. Williams]

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of thirty. Sunrise today is 7:20 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 01m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 14.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Prosthetics allow not only people, but animals, mobility they would otherwise not have. In the video below, a canine walks for the first time, with the help of 3D-printed prosthetics —

On this day in 1957, an American nuclear plant first began producing electricity for commercial use:

Washington, Dec. 18–The country’s first large-scale civilian atomic power plant started generating electricity for commercial use today.

This milestone of the atomic age was reached early this morning when the atomic power plant at Shippingport, Pa., began producing electricity for consumers in the Pittsburgh area.

At 12:39 A. M., the Atomic Energy Commission announced, the atomic-powered generator of the Shippingport plant was tied in with the electrical system of the Duquesne Light Company.

Gradually the fission heat from the large atomic reactor was increased. By 3 A. M. the plant was producing more than the 8,000 kilowatts it consumes and was sending electricity through the Duquesne Light transmission lines.

Google-a-Day asks a science question:

If you want to find the energy quantum of light, you multiply the frequency of the radiation (v) by “h”. What is “h”?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in Whitewater arrives with partly cloudy skies and a high of twenty-nine. Sunrise is 7:20 AM and sunset 4:22 PM for 9h 02m 06s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 22.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1903, the Wright Brothers accomplish a feat never before accomplished in all history, and in so doing deeply influence the course of future events:

The Wright Flyer (often retrospectively referred to as Flyer I or 1903 Flyer) was the first successful heavier-than-air powered aircraft, designed and built by the Wright brothers. They flew it four times on December 17, 1903, near Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, U.S. Today, the airplane is exhibited in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

The U.S. Smithsonian Institution describes the aircraft as “…the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard.”[2] The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale described the 1903 flight during the 100th anniversary in 2003 as “the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.”[3]….

Upon returning to Kitty Hawk in 1903, the Wrights completed assembly of the Flyer while practicing on the 1902 Glider from the previous season. On December 14, 1903, they felt ready for their first attempt at powered flight. With the help of men from the nearby government life-saving station, the Wrights moved the Flyer and its launching rail to the incline of a nearby sand dune, Big Kill Devil Hill, intending to make a gravity-assisted takeoff. The brothers tossed a coin to decide who would get the first chance at piloting, and Wilbur won. The airplane left the rail, but Wilbur pulled up too sharply, stalled, and came down in about three seconds with minor damage.

Repairs after the abortive first flight took three days. When they were ready again on December 17, the wind was averaging more than 20 mph, so the brothers laid the launching rail on level ground, pointed into the wind, near their camp. This time the wind, instead of an inclined launch, helped provide the necessary airspeed for takeoff. Because Wilbur already had the first chance, Orville took his turn at the controls. His first flight lasted 12 seconds for a total distance of 120 ft (36.5 m) – shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747, as noted by observers in the 2003 commemoration of the first flight.[1][7]

Taking turns, the Wrights made four brief, low-altitude flights that day. The flight paths were all essentially straight; turns were not attempted. Each flight ended in a bumpy and unintended “landing”. The last flight, by Wilbur, was 852 feet (260 m) in 59 seconds, much longer than each of the three previous flights of 120, 175 and 200 feet. The landing broke the front elevator supports, which the Wrights hoped to repair for a possible four-mile (6 km) flight to Kitty Hawk village. Soon after, a heavy gust picked up the Flyer and tumbled it end over end, damaging it beyond any hope of quick repair. It was never flown again.

Google a Day asks a question about biology:

Which phylum of the gymnosperms includes only a single living species?