Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in town brings a probability of thunderstorms and a high of sixty-two. Sunrise today in 7:07 AM and sunset 6:14 PM. The moon is a waning gibbous with sixty-one percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets at 5:30 PM, and Cable Television committee meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1947, Captain (later Brigadier General) Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to break the sound barrier:

Yeager remained in the Air Force after the war, becoming a test pilot at Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base). After Bell Aircraft test pilot “Slick” Goodlin demanded $150,000 to break the sound “barrier,” the USAAF selected Yeager to fly the rocket-powered Bell XS-1 in a NACA program to research high-speed flight.[13][14]

Yeager in front of the Bell X-1, which, as with all of the aircraft assigned to him, he named Glamorous Glennis (or some variation thereof), after his wife.

Yeager in the Bell X-1 cockpit.
Such was the difficulty in this task that the answer to many of the inherent challenges were along the lines of “Yeager better have paid-up insurance.”[15] Two nights before the scheduled date for the flight, Yeager broke two ribs falling from a horse. He was so afraid of being removed from the mission that he went to a veterinarian in a nearby town for treatment and told only his wife, as well as friend and fellow project pilot Jack Ridley about the accident. On the day of the flight, Yeager was in such pain that he could not seal the X-1’s hatch by himself. Ridley rigged up a device, using the end of a broom handle as an extra lever, to allow Yeager to seal the hatch of the X-1.

Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the X-1 at Mach 1.07 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m).[16][N 2] Yeager was awarded the MacKay and Collier Trophies in 1948 for his mach-transcending flight, and the Harmon International Trophy in 1954. The X-1 he flew that day was later put on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

Yeager went on to break many other speed and altitude records. He was also one of the first American pilots to fly a MiG-15, after its pilot defected to South Korea.[18][19] Returning to Muroc, during the latter half of 1953, Yeager was involved with the USAF team that was working on the X-1A, an aircraft designed to surpass Mach 2 in level flight. That year, he flew a chase aircraft for the civilian pilot Jackie Cochran, a close friend, as she became the first woman to fly faster than sound.[1]

Also on this day, in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt is shot in Milwaukee during his third-party run for the presidency:

On the night of October 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee. Roosevelt was in Wisconsin stumping as the presidential candidate of the new, independent Progressive Party, which had split from the Republican Party earlier that year. Roosevelt already had served two terms as chief executive (1901-1909), but was seeking the office again as the champion of progressive reform. Unbeknownst to Roosevelt, a New York bartender named John Schrank had been stalking him for three weeks through eight states. As Roosevelt left Milwaukee’s Hotel Gilpatrick for a speaking engagement at the Milwaukee Auditorium and stood waving to the gathered crowd, Schrank fired a .38-caliber revolver that he had hidden in his coat.

Roosevelt was hit in the right side of the chest and the bullet lodged in his chest wall. Seeing the blood on his shirt, vest, and coat, his aides pleaded with him to seek medical help, but Roosevelt trivialized the wound and insisted on keeping his commitment. His life was probably saved by the speech, since the contents of his coat pocket — his metal spectacle case and the thick, folded manuscript of his talk — had absorbed much of the force of the bullet. Throughout the evening he made light of the wound, declaring at one point, “It takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose,” but the candidate spend the next week in the hospital and carried the bullet inside him the rest of his life.

Schrank, the would-be assassin, was examined by psychiatrists, who recommended that he be committed to an asylum. A judge concurred and Schrank spent the remainder of his life incarcerated, first at the Northern Hospital for the Insane in Oshkosh, then at Central State Hospital for the criminally insane at the state prison at Waupun. The glass Roosevelt drank from on stage that night was acquired by the Wisconsin Historical Museum. You can read more about the assassination attempt on their Museum Object of Week pages.

Google-a-Day asks a science question:

What type of arthropod limb branches into two, with each branch then comprised of a single series of segments attached end-to-end?

Good morning, Whitewater.

A new week begins in town with a high of sixty-five, and a likelihood of afternoon and evening thunderstorms.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

Friday’s FW poll asked whether an ebola-themed costume seemed like a good choice for a Halloween party. Just under 9 of 10 respondents said that it wouldn’t be their pick.

Russian foreign policy brings violence to others, and her domestic policy brings oppression to her own people. Of those people, however, there are sure to be some who are good-hearted. This happy man, perhaps, is among them:

On this day in 1775, Congress authorizes a navy, not yet the United States Navy, but still an American predecessor:

The Continental Congress authorizes construction and administration of the first American naval force—the precursor of the United States Navy.

Since the outbreak of open hostilities with the British in April, little consideration had been given to protection by sea until Congress received news that a British naval fleet was on its way. In November, the Continental Navy was formally organized, and in December Esek Hopkins was appointed the first commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy. His first fleet consisted of seven ships: two 24-gun frigates, the Alfred and the Columbus; two 14-gun brigs, the Andrea Doria and the Cabot; and three schooners, the Hornet, the Wasp, and the Fly.

During the American Revolution, the Continental Navy successfully preyed on British merchant shipping and won several victories over British warships. After being disbanded for several years, the United States Navy was formally established with the creation of the Department of the Navy in April 1798.

Google-a-Day asks a question about discovery:

In what year was an uninhabited island located 1,404 miles away from the nearest human discovered?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Sunday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-three, and just a one-in-five chance of rain.

Reality’s catching up with science fiction: here’s a drone race in France that looks like a scene from Star Wars —

On this day in 1492, Columbus’s first voyage comes within sight of land:

On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships: a larger carrack, the Santa María ex-Gallega (“Galician”), and two smaller caravels, the Pinta (“The Pint”, “The Look”, or “The Spotted One”) and the Santa Clara, nicknamed the Niña (lit. “Girl”) after her owner Juan Niño of Moguer.[44] The monarchs forced the Palos inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. The Santa María was owned by Juan de la Cosa and captained by Columbus. The Pinta and the Niña were piloted by the Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez).[26]

Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, which belonged to Castile, where he restocked the provisions and made repairs. After stopping over in Gran Canaria, he departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean. A lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermeo), spotted land about 2:00 on the morning of 12 October, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the discovery and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard.[45] Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.[26][46]

Columbus called the island (in what is now The Bahamas) San Salvador; the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is unresolved. Based on primary accounts and based on what one would expect based on the geographic positions of the islands given Columbus’s venture’s course, the prime candidates are San Salvador Island (so named in 1925 on the theory that it was Columbus’ San Salvador),[47] Samana Cay, and Plana Cays.[26]

Good morning, Whitewater.

It’s sunny skies ahead in town today, with a high of sixty. Sunrise is 7:04 AM and sunset is 6:19 PM. The moon is a waning gibbous with eighty-seven percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On a beautiful day like this, one can expect at least a few residents to enjoy skateboarding, at our skateboard park. But what about their means of locomotion? How are those skateboards made?

Here’s how:

One Skateboard At A Time from Chapman Skateboards on Vimeo.

Good morning, Whitewater.

Our work week ends with mostly sunny skies and a high of fifty-eight.

It’s a great musician’s birthday:

Thelonious Sphere Monk[2] (October 10, 1917[3] – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the giants of American music.[4] Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including “‘Round Midnight,” “Blue Monk,” “Ruby, My Dear,” “In Walked Bud,” and “Well, You Needn’t”. Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than 1,000 pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.[5]

His compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk’s unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. This style was not universally appreciated, shown for instance in poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin’s dismissal of Monk as “the elephant on the keyboard”.[6]

He was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats, and sunglasses. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit observed at times during performances: while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.

Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time, after Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Duke Ellington, and before Wynton Marsalis.[7][8]

That calls for Straight, No Chaser:

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?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Our Thursday will be sunny with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 7:01 AM and sunset 6:22 PM. The moon’s a waning gibbous with ninety-eight percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Paper airplanes will never go out of style, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from upgrades:

Google-a-Day poses a question about architecture:

What is the most famous design in Rome by the architect credited with introducing High Renaissance style to the city?