Good morning.

Our week begins with mostly cloudy skies and a high of thirty-five. Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 7:12 PM. The moon is a waning crescent with forty-three percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Dogs are, through domestication, naturally attuned and responsive to human actions. Most dogs want to please, and are trusting of their owners and others.

In the video below, however, a magician’s simple trick leaves an assortment of dogs puzzled. They mostly take the perceived disappearance of a treat in stride, with the exception of one dog that barks in evident irritation. That’s probably a better overall response than the magician could have expected from people, in a similar situation.

On this day in 1989, Alaska suffers a tanker spill:

The worst oil spill in U.S. territory begins when the supertanker Exxon Valdez, owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, runs aground on a reef in Prince William Sound in southern Alaska. An estimated 11 million gallons of oil eventually spilled into the water. Attempts to contain the massive spill were unsuccessful, and wind and currents spread the oil more than 100 miles from its source, eventually polluting more than 700 miles of coastline. Hundreds of thousands of birds and animals were adversely affected by the environmental disaster.

It was later revealed that Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Valdez, was drinking at the time of the accident and allowed an uncertified officer to steer the massive vessel. In March 1990, Hazelwood was convicted of misdemeanor negligence, fined $50,000, and ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service. In July 1992, an Alaska court overturned Hazelwood’s conviction, citing a federal statute that grants freedom from prosecution to those who report an oil spill….

In Wisconsin history, it’s the birthday of a magician connected to Appleton:

Harry Houdini Born
On this date magician Harry Houdini was born in Budapest, though he later claimed to have been born on April 6, 1874, in Appleton, Wisconsin. At the age of 13 he left Appleton, where his family had emigrated, for New York City, and began his career as an escape artist and magician. [Source: History Museum at the Castle]

Puzzability offers a new series this week, entitled March Madness:

This Week’s Game — March 24-28

March Madness

You can fill in your brackets every day for our little tournament. Each answer in this week’s trivia quiz is a name, title, or phrase that includes the letters in the word MARCH together, but out of order.

Example:

What song was Culture Club’s biggest hit, and its only song to reach #1 in the United States?

Answer:

“Ka[RMA CH]ameleon”

What to Submit:

Submit the name, title, or phrase, with the MARCH section in brackets (as “Ka[RMA CH]ameleon” in the example), for your answer.

Monday, March 24

What cereal was inspired by the idea of mixing Cheerios with Brach’s Circus Peanuts?

Good morning.

Sunday will be sunny with a high of twenty-seven. Sunrise is 6:53 AM and sunset is 7:11 PM. The moon’s in its last quarter tonight at 8:47 PM.

In London, Pepsi Co. decided to modify a bus shelter by adding a video screen, and then creating the illusion that fantastic, wholly unexpected things were happening on the other side of the shelter’s glass wall. Clever, funny, and sometimes startling:

On this day in 1839, O.K. makes its way into a major newspaper, advancing in our vernacular:

On this day in 1839, the initials “O.K.” are first published in The Boston Morning Post. Meant as an abbreviation for “oll correct,” a popular slang misspelling of “all correct” at the time, OK steadily made its way into the everyday speech of Americans.

During the late 1830s, it was a favorite practice among younger, educated circles to misspell words intentionally, then abbreviate them and use them as slang when talking to one another. Just as teenagers today have their own slang based on distortions of common words, such as “kewl” for “cool” or “DZ” for “these,” the “in crowd” of the 1830s had a whole host of slang terms they abbreviated. Popular abbreviations included “KY” for “No use” (“know yuse”), “KG” for “No go” (“Know go”), and “OW” for all right (“oll wright”).

Of all the abbreviations used during that time, OK was propelled into the limelight when it was printed in the Boston Morning Post as part of a joke. Its popularity exploded when it was picked up by contemporary politicians. When the incumbent president Martin Van Buren was up for reelection, his Democratic supporters organized a band of thugs to influence voters. This group was formally called the “O.K. Club,” which referred both to Van Buren’s nickname “Old Kinderhook” (based on his hometown of Kinderhook, New York), and to the term recently made popular in the papers….

On this day in 1865, Union soldiers from Wisconsin conclude successfully the North Carolin campaign:

1865 – Wis. Troops End Hostilities in N.C.
On this date, the 21st Wisconsin Infantry, made up mostly of soldiers from the Oshkosh area, finished fighting their way through the South during Sherman’s March to the Sea and reached Goldsboro, N.C., where the campaign in the Carolinas ended. Its veterans reunited 40 years later in Manitowoc. [Source: 21st Wisconsin Infantry homepage]

Well and bravely done.

Good morning.

Saturday in town will be an increasingly sunny day, with a high of thirty-six. Sunrise today is 6:55 AM and sunset 7:10 PM. The moon is in a waning gibbous phase with sixty-five precent of its visible disk illuminated.

In Iowa, storm chasers have built a tornado-pursuing vehicle named Dorothy from a Ford van. It no longer looks like a Ford van:

The video below describes their work.

On this day in 1765, Britain imposes the Stamp Act:

In an effort to raise funds to pay off debts and defend the vast new American territories won from the French in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), the British government passes the Stamp Act on this day in 1765. The legislation levied a direct tax on all materials printed for commercial and legal use in the colonies, from newspapers and pamphlets to playing cards and dice.

Though the Stamp Act employed a strategy that was a common fundraising vehicle in England, it stirred a storm of protest in the colonies. The colonists had recently been hit with three major taxes: the Sugar Act (1764), which levied new duties on imports of textiles, wines, coffee and sugar; the Currency Act (1764), which caused a major decline in the value of the paper money used by colonists; and the Quartering Act (1765), which required colonists to provide food and lodging to British troops.

With the passing of the Stamp Act, the colonists’ grumbling finally became an articulated response to what they saw as the mother country’s attempt to undermine their economic strength and independence. They raised the issue of taxation without representation, and formed societies throughout the colonies to rally against the British government and nobles who sought to exploit the colonies as a source of revenue and raw materials. By October of that year, nine of the 13 colonies sent representatives to the Stamp Act Congress, at which the colonists drafted the “Declaration of Rights and Grievances,” a document that railed against the autocratic policies of the mercantilist British empire.

Realizing that it actually cost more to enforce the Stamp Act in the protesting colonies than it did to abolish it, the British government repealed the tax the following year. The fracas over the Stamp Act, though, helped plant seeds for a far larger movement against the British government and the eventual battle for independence. Most important of these was the formation of the Sons of Liberty–a group of tradesmen who led anti-British protests in Boston and other seaboard cities–and other groups of wealthy landowners who came together from the across the colonies. Well after the Stamp Act was repealed, these societies continued to meet in opposition to what they saw as the abusive policies of the British empire. Out of their meetings, a growing nationalism emerged that would culminate in the fighting of the American Revolution only a decade later.

Quite the British mistake, but in consequence much to America’s political benefit.

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be an increasingly cloudy day, with a high of fifty-one.

On this day in 1871, Stanley begins his search for Livingstone:

…Henry Morton Stanley begins his famous search through Africa for the missing British explorer Dr. David Livingstone.

In the late 19th century, Europeans and Americans were deeply fascinated by the “Dark Continent” of Africa and its many mysteries. Few did more to increase Africa’s fame than Livingstone, one of England’s most intrepid explorers. In August 1865, he set out on a planned two-year expedition to find the source of the Nile River. Livingstone also wanted to help bring about the abolition of the slave trade, which was devastating Africa’s population.

Almost six years after his expedition began, little had been heard from Livingstone. James Gordon Bennett, Jr., editor of the New York Herald, decided to capitalize on the public’s craze for news of their hero. He sent Stanley to lead an expedition into the African wilderness to find Livingstone or bring back proof of his death….

After setting out from Zanzibar in March 1871, Stanley led his caravan of nearly 2,000 men into the interior of Africa. Nearly eight months passed–during which Stanley contracted dysentery, cerebral malaria and smallpox–before the expedition approached the village of Ujiji, on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. Sick and poverty-stricken, Livingstone had come to Ujiji that July after living for some time at the mercy of Arab slave traders. When Stanley’s caravan entered the village on October 27, flying the American flag, villagers crowded toward the new arrivals. Spotting a white man with a gray beard in the crowd, Stanley stepped toward him and stretched out his hand: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

Puzzability‘s Irish Stew concludes with Friday’s game:

This Week’s Game — March 17-21

Irish Stew

We’re going for brogue this St. Patrick’s Day week. For each day, we started with a word or phrase, added the seven letters in IRELAND, and rearranged all the letters to get the name of a famous person. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.

Example:

Affirmative answer; Rescue Me star

Answer:

Yes; Denis Leary

What to Submit:

Submit both pieces, with the shorter one first (as “Yes; Denis Leary” in the example), for your answer.

Friday, March 21

Turned wrong such that all the seams show; producer of the 1976 King Kong

Good morning.

Thursday will be mostly sunny with a high of forty-five.

A post at Relevant reminds that sometimes a problem offers its own solution:

sometimes the very thing that causes your problems might also be the solution—in this case, a biker was knocked over by a speeding mattress, but also happened to land on that mattress where—according to authorities in Brazil, where this all happened, he was just fine. It all happens at about the 20 second mark …

On this day in 1854, activists found the Republican Party:

1854 – Republican Party Founded
On this date Free Soilers and Whigs outraged by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, met in Ripon to consider forming a new political party. The meeting’s organizer, Alvan E. Bovay, proposed the name “Republican” which had been suggested by New York editor Horace Greeley. You can see eyewitness accounts of the meeting, early Republican campaign documents, and other original sources on our page devoted to Wisconsin and the Republican Party. Though other places have claimed themselves as the birthplace of the Republican Party, this was the earliest meeting held for the purpose and the first to use the term Republican. [Source: History of Wisconsin, II: 218-219]

Puzzability‘s Irish Stew continues with Thursday’s game:

This Week’s Game — March 17-21

Irish Stew

We’re going for brogue this St. Patrick’s Day week. For each day, we started with a word or phrase, added the seven letters in IRELAND, and rearranged all the letters to get the name of a famous person. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.

Example:

Affirmative answer; Rescue Me star

Answer:

Yes; Denis Leary

What to Submit:

Submit both pieces, with the shorter one first (as “Yes; Denis Leary” in the example), for your answer.

Thursday, March 20

Airtight, as a seal; star of The Blue Angel and Witness for the Prosecution