Good morning, Whitewater.

We’ll have a sunny day with a high of seventy-seven today.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

I’ve purchased a few things on eBay, but I’ve never sold anything there. For those who do, or would like to do so, here’s a video that describes a simple way to make one’s goods look sharp, with a basic photographic technique:

On this day in 1864, the United States Navy defeats a Confederate force at the Battle of Mobile Bay:

The Battle of Mobile Bay of August 5, 1864, was an engagement of the American Civil War in which a Federal fleet commanded by Rear Adm. David G. Farragut, assisted by a contingent of soldiers, attacked a smaller Confederate fleet led by Adm. Franklin Buchanan and three forts that guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay.

The battle was marked by Farragut’s seemingly rash but successful run through a minefield that had just claimed one of his ironclad monitors, enabling his fleet to get beyond the range of the shore-based guns. This was followed by a reduction of the Confederate fleet to a single vessel, ironclad CSS Tennessee. Tennessee did not then retire, but engaged the entire Northern fleet. The armor on Tennessee gave her an advantage that enabled her to inflict more injury than she received, but she could not overcome the imbalance in numbers.

She was eventually reduced to a motionless hulk, unable either to move or to reply to the guns of the Union fleet. Her captain then surrendered, ending the battle. With no Navy to support them, the three forts within days also surrendered. Complete control of the lower Mobile Bay thus passed to the Union forces.

Mobile had been the last important port on the Gulf of Mexico east of the Mississippi River remaining in Confederate possession, so its closure was the final step in completing the blockade in that region.

This Union victory, together with the capture of Atlanta, was extensively covered by Union newspapers and was a significant boost for Abraham Lincoln’s bid for re-election three months after the battle.

Google-a-Day asks a question about oil:

Who drilled the first European oil wells in 1864?

Good morning, Whitewater.

We have a sixty percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms, with a daytime highs of eighty-one. Sunrise today is 5:49 AM and sunset is 8:12 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with fifty-seven percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Fire & Rescue Task Force is scheduled to meet tonight at 7 PM.

On this day in 1914, England declared war on Germany. The New York Times reported the news the next day:

London, Wednesday, Aug. 5– War is on between England and Germany. An ultimatum to the German Government that the neutrality of Belgium must be respected was rejected by the Kaiser’s Government and the British Foreign Office announced last night that a state of war existed.

The time limit for Germany’s reply was set at midnight, but the Foreign Office announced that as Germany had given his passports to the British envoy at an earlier hour, the state of war existed from 11 o’clock.

King George has issued his proclamation mobilizing the army and has sent a message to the colonies thanking them for their hearty support in the hour of national emergency.

The Government has assumed control of all the railways and the Admirality has taken over all the foreign warships now building in English ports. The House of Commons has voted a fund of $525,000,000 for the emergency.

Google-a-Day begins the week with a football question:

What player’s status for the 2012 Super Bowl was questionable in January after he missed practice for the second day in a row due to an ankle injury?

Good morning, Whitewater.

We will have a one-third chance of afternoon thunderstorms on a day with otherwise sunny skies and a high of eighty-three. Sunrise today is 5:48 AM and sunset is 8:13 PM. The moon is in its first quarter today.

For the FW Friday poll, about whether extraterrestrial beings or bratty German kids were likely responsible for crop circles in Bavaria, most respondents (59.09%) thought kids were responsible.

We often hear about the speed of light, but what about the speed of dark? Vsauce considers the supposed paradox that the speed of darkness is faster than the speed of light, and resolves that apparent (but erroneous) speculation:

On this day in 1958, the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travels beneath the ice, across the North Pole:

In response to the nuclear ICBM threat posed by Sputnik, President Eisenhower ordered the US Navy to attempt a submarine transit of the North Pole to gain credibility for the soon-to-come SLBM weapons system.^[11]

On 25 April 1958, Nautilus was underway again for the West Coast, now commanded by Commander William R. Anderson, USN. Stopping at San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle, she began her history-making polar transit, operation “Sunshine”, as she departed the latter port on 9 June. On 19 June she entered the Chukchi Sea, but was turned back by deep drift ice in those shallow waters. On 28 June she arrived at Pearl Harbor to await better ice conditions. By 23 July her wait was over, and she set a course northward.

She submerged in the Barrow Sea Valley on 1 August and on 3 August, at 2315 (EDT) she became the first watercraft to reach the geographic North Pole.^[12] The ability to navigate at extreme latitudes and without surfacing was enabled by the technology of the North American Aviation N6A-1 Inertial Navigation System, a naval modification of the N6A used in the Navaho cruise missile. (The N6A-1 had been installed on Nautilus and Skate after initial sea trials on the USS Compass Island in 1957.)^[13]

From the North Pole, she continued on and after 96 hours and 1,590 nmi (2,940 km; 1,830 mi) under the ice, surfaced northeast of Greenland, having completed the first successful submerged voyage around the North Pole. The technical details of this mission were planned by scientists from the Naval Electronics Laboratory including Dr. Waldo Lyon who accompanied Nautilus as chief scientist and ice pilot.

Navigator’s report: Nautilus, 90°N, 19:15U, 3 August 1958, zero to North Pole.

Navigation beneath the arctic ice sheet was difficult. Above 85°N both magnetic compasses and normal gyrocompasses become inaccurate. A special gyrocompass built by Sperry Rand was installed shortly before the journey. There was a risk that the submarine would become disoriented beneath the ice and that the crew would have to play “longitude roulette”. Commander Anderson had considered using torpedoes to blow a hole in the ice if the submarine needed to surface.^{[citation needed]}

The most difficult part of the journey was in the Bering Strait. The ice extended as much as 60 feet (18 m) below sea level. During the initial attempt to go through the Bering Strait, there was insufficient room between the ice and the sea bottom. During the second, successful attempt to pass through the Bering passage, the submarine passed through a known channel close to Alaska (this was not the first choice as the submarine wanted to avoid detection).

Good morning, Whitewater.

For the Main Street Festival today, Whitewater will have a mostly sunny day with a high of eighty-two.

On this day in 1939, Leó Szilárd and Albert Einstein send a letter to Pres. Roosevelt urging research on an atomic bomb:

The Einstein–Szilárd letter was a letter written by Leó Szilárd and signed by Albert Einstein that was sent to the United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1939. Though Szilárd consulted with his fellow Hungarian physicists Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner on it, he was the principal author. The letter warned of the danger that Germany might develop atomic bombs and suggested that the United States should initiate its own nuclear program. It prompted action by Roosevelt, which eventually resulted in the Manhattan Project developing the first atomic bombs.

On this day in 1832, a war ends:

1832 – Black Hawk War Ends

On this date the defeat of Black Hawk and his followers at the Battle of Bad Axe, ended the Black Hawk War. Black Hawk led the American troops northward while the rest of the Indians constructed rafts and canoes to facilitate an escape over the Mississippi river. The plan was successful initially but eventually General Atkinson realized the ruse. In the battle, women, children and the elderly hid behind rocks and logs and American soldiers often could not or did not differentiate between warriors and the women and children. Atkinson sent Wabasha and his Sioux warriors, enemies of the Sauk, after the approximately 150 members of the British Band that made it to the Western bank of the Mississippi. The Sauk, “escaped the best they could, and dispersed“, but only 22 women and childern were spared. Black Hawk escaped, but the Battle of Bad Axe marked the end of the war. [Source: Along the Black Hawk Trail by William F. Stark, p.142-153]

Good morning, Whitewater.

A new month begins, with a mostly sunny day, a high of eighty-one, and a forty percent chance of afternoon showers. Sunrise is 5:46 AM and sunset 8:16 PM. The moon is a waxing crescent with twenty-seven percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this month in 1774, Joseph Priestly discovers oxygen (with other scientists having a role in its discovery, also):

In August 1774 he isolated an “air” that appeared to be completely new, but he did not have an opportunity to pursue the matter because he was about to tour Europe with Shelburne. While in Paris, however, Priestley managed to replicate the experiment for others, including French chemist Antoine Lavoisier. After returning to Britain in January 1775, he continued his experiments and discovered “vitriolic acid air” (sulphur dioxide, SO₂).

In March he wrote to several people regarding the new “air” that he had discovered in August. One of these letters was read aloud to the Royal Society, and a paper outlining the discovery, titled “An Account of further Discoveries in Air”, was published in the Society’s journal Philosophical Transactions.^[99] Priestley called the new substance “dephlogisticated air”, which he made in the famous experiment by focusing the sun’s rays on a sample of mercuric oxide. He first tested it on mice, who surprised him by surviving quite a while entrapped with the air, and then on himself, writing that it was “five or six times better than common air for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and, I believe, every other use of common atmospherical air”.^[100] He had discovered oxygen gas (O₂).

Priestley assembled his oxygen paper and several others into a second volume of Experiments and Observations on Air, published in 1776. He did not emphasise his discovery of “dephlogisticated air” (leaving it to Part III of the volume) but instead argued in the preface how important such discoveries were to rational religion. His paper narrated the discovery chronologically, relating the long delays between experiments and his initial puzzlements; thus, it is difficult to determine when exactly Priestley “discovered” oxygen.^[101] Such dating is significant as both Lavoisier and Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele have strong claims to the discovery of oxygen as well, Scheele having been the first to isolate the gas (although he published after Priestley) and Lavoisier having been the first to describe it as purified “air itself entire without alteration” (that is, the first to explain oxygen without phlogiston theory).^[102]

In his paper “Observations on Respiration and the Use of the Blood”, Priestley was the first to suggest a connection between blood and air, although he did so using phlogiston theory. In typical Priestley fashion, he prefaced the paper with a history of the study of respiration. A year later, clearly influenced by Priestley, Lavoisier was also discussing respiration at the Académie des sciences. Lavoisier’s work began the long train of discovery that produced papers on oxygen respiration and culminated in the overthrow of phlogiston theory and the establishment of modern chemistry.^[103]

Google-a-Day presents a history question:

At the time of signing, what was the title of the man who is the first of the two names in the name of the 1901 treaty that nullified the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty?