Good morning, Whitewater.

Saturday in town will be mostly cloudy, with a high of eighty-three and west winds of five to ten mph.

On this day in 1931, grasshoppers torment the Midwest:

…a swarm of grasshoppers descends on crops throughout the American heartland, devastating millions of acres. Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, already in the midst of a bad drought, suffered tremendously from this disaster.

Since the very beginning of agriculture, people have struggled to prevent insects from eating their crops. Locusts and grasshoppers, insect cousins, are among the most feared pests. A plague of these insects can occur when conditions cause their populations to suddenly explode. Usually this happens under drought or very dry conditions, since their egg pods are vulnerable to fungus in wet soil. When the soil is very dry, swarms can develop.

Professor Jeff Lockwood of Wyoming describes being in a swarm as follows, They explode from beneath your feet. There’s sort of a rolling wave that forms out it front of you. They hit up against your body and cling against your clothes. It’s almost like being immersed in a gigantic living being. Locusts and grasshoppers undergo a significant transformation when they become part of a swarm. Their wings and jaws grow, enabling them to travel greater distances and increasing their appetite.

The July 1931 swarm was said to be so thick that it blocked out the sun and one could shovel the grasshoppers with a scoop. Cornstalks were eaten to the ground and fields left completely bare. Since the early 1930s, swarms have not been seen in the United States. However, North Africa and parts of the Middle East continue to experience problems with insect swarms, which sometimes includes as many as 1 billion bugs.

On 7.26.1865, regiments from Wisconsin muster out:

The 37th and 38th Wisconsin Infantry regiments mustered out. The 37th had spent its 14-month-long term of service in and around Washington D.C. It participated in the Siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign in pursuit of General Lee’s army. It lost 247 men during service. The 38th served in the same campaigns as the 37th but was also on duty at Arsenal, Washington, during trial and execution of President Lincoln’s assassins. It lost 113 men during service.

Good morning, Whitewater.

Friday presents to us a forty-percent chance of thunderstorms with a high of seventy-eight.

On this day in 1897, Jack London takes a trip:

Jack London leaves for the Klondike to join the gold rush, where he will write his first successful stories.

London was born in San Francisco in 1876. His father, an astrologer named Chaney, abandoned the family, and his mother, a spiritualist and music teacher, remarried. Jack assumed his stepfather’s last name, London.

From an early age, London struggled to make a living, working in a cannery and as a sailor, oyster pirate, and fish patroller. During the national economic crisis of 1893, he joined a march of unemployed workers. He was jailed for vagrancy for a month, during which time he decided to go to college. The 17-year-old London completed a high school equivalency course and enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, where he read voraciously for a year. However, he dropped out to join the 1897 gold rush.

While in the Klondike, London began submitting stories to magazines. In 1900, his first collection of stories, The Son of the Wolf, was published. Three years later, his story The Call of the Wild made him famous around the country. London continued to write stories of adventure amid the harsh natural elements. During his 17-year career, he wrote 50 fiction and nonfiction books. He settled in northern California about 1911, having already written most of his best work. London, a heavy drinker, died in 1916.

Google-a-Day asks a sports question:

The famous defensive tackle who died during a game against the New York Dragons, played in how many games for the Panthers during his career?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in the city will be sunny with a high of seventy-five.

On this day in 1911, Hiram Bingham discovers Machu Picchu:

Machu Picchu (in hispanicized spelling, Spanish pronunciation: … or Machu Pikchu (Quechua machu old, old person, pikchu peak; mountain or prominence with a broad base which ends in sharp peaks,^[1] “old peak”, pronunciation … is a 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level.^[2][3] It is located in the Cusco Region, Urubamba Province, Machupicchu District in Peru.^[4] It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Sacred Valley which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba Riverflows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the “Lost City of the Incas”, it is perhaps the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.

The Incas built the estate around 1450, but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of what the structures originally looked like.^[5] By 1976, thirty percent of Machu Picchu had been restored.^[5] The restoration work continues to this day.^[6]

Since the site was not known to the Spanish during their conquest, it is highly significant as a relatively intact cultural site. Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.^[3] In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.

On this day in 1892, fire levels most of a Wisconsin town:

1892 – Fire Destroys Iron River

On this date a major fire destroyed most of Iron River, Wisconsin. After the fire was extinguished, the town resembled a “tent city” during the rebuilding. [Source: “B” Book I, Beer Bottles, Brawls, Boards, Brothels, Bibles, Battles & Brownstone by Tony Woiak, p.18]

Google-a-Day presents a question about the Second World War:

What was the name of the Allied operation against which German forces launched a counteroffensive in Anzio in 1944?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Wednesday will be sunny and mild, with a high of seventy-five.

In America, where do confiscated wildlife and plants go? They go to Denver:

The National Wildlife Property Repository, a government facility outside of Denver, stores more than a million products of the illegal wildlife trade, from tigers and bears to elephant ivory. These items are confiscated at points of entry around the United States, and sent to the Repository to be destroyed or used for educational purposes. The Wildlife Property Repository is a revealing window into the growing global industry of wildlife and plant trafficking, which has been estimated at up to $23 billion.

The facility also houses the National Eagle Repository, which receives and distributes deceased bald and golden eagles to Native Americans around the United States, who use them for religious purposes.

Via The Remote Warehouse Where Confiscated Wildlife Ends Up @ The Atlantic.

Google-a-Day asks a science and business question:

Who founded the company named for the man who invented vulcanized rubber?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday brings a high of ninety to Whitewater, with a thirty precent chance of late afternoon thunderstorms. Sunrise today is 5:36 AM and sunset is 8:26 PM. The moon is a waning crescent with sixteen percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets today at 4:30 PM, and the Alcohol Licensing & Review Committee is scheduled to meet at 6 PM.

Whitewater’s heard inflated concerns about snakes and foxes, but it’s probably only a matter of time before someone sounds the alarm over skunks:

From the suburbs to the cities skunks seem to be everywhere, Outside magazine reports. They’re on the rise in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, they’ve been spotted along the Jersey Shore, and they’re even infiltrating Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

Molecular biologist Christopher Kemp has striped skunks living beneath his shed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a city where skunk stink abounds in “a thick, immovable cloud.” He explains the problem in Outside:

Many of my neighbors have begun talking about a plan to organize against the skunks…[W]e set up an e-mail address for residents to report skunk sightings. The messages arrive slowly at first, then in a flood: skunks in yards every night, skunks spraying dogs, skunks sitting proudly atop trash cans.

See, for more about the foul-smelling, city-wrecking invaders that await, Suburban Skunks are on the Rise: Grand Rapids, Michigan, is basically enveloped in a cloud of stink.

On this day in 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer is arrested:

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, police officers spot Tracy Edwards running down the street in handcuffs, and upon investigation, they find one of the grisliest scenes in modern history-Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment.

Edwards told the police that Dahmer had held him at his apartment and threatened to kill him. Although they initially thought the story was dubious, the officers took Edwards back to Dahmer’s apartment. Dahmer calmly explained that the whole matter was simply a misunderstanding and the officers almost believed him. However, they spotted a few Polaroid photos of dismembered bodies, and Dahmer was arrested.

When Dahmer’s apartment was fully searched, a house of horrors was revealed. In addition to photo albums full of pictures of body parts, the apartment was littered with human remains: Several heads were in the refrigerator and freezer; two skulls were on top of the computer; and a 57-gallon drum containing several bodies decomposing in chemicals was found in a corner of the bedroom. There was also evidence to suggest that Dahmer had been eating some of his victims.

Neighbors told both detectives and the press that they had noticed an awful smell emanating from the apartment but that Dahmer had explained it away as expired meat. However, the most shocking revelation about how Dahmer had managed to conceal his awful crimes in the middle of a city apartment building would come a few days later.

Apparently, police had been called two months earlier about a naked and bleeding 14-year-old boy being chased down an alley by Dahmer. The responding officers actually returned the boy, who had been drugged, to Dahmer’s apartment–where he was promptly killed. The officers, who said that they believed it to be a domestic dispute, were later fired.

A forensic examination of the apartment turned up 11 victims–the first of whom disappeared in March 1989, just two months before Dahmer successfully escaped a prison sentence for child molestation by telling the judge that he was desperately seeking to change his conduct. Dahmer later confessed to 17 murders in all, dating back to his first victim in 1978.

The jury rejected Dahmer’s insanity defense, and he was sentenced to 15 life terms. He survived one attempt on his life in July 1994, but was killed by another inmate on November 28, 1994.

Google-a-Day poses a question of art and literature:

Who, while working as an apprentice compositor, wrote articles under the pseudonym “Aristides”?