Good morning.

Mother’s Day in Whitewater brings a high of seventy-seven, with a four-in-ten chance of afternoon thunderstorms.

On this day in 1947, B.F. Goodrich publicizes a true automotive innovation:

…the B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, announces it has developed a tubeless tire, a technological innovation that would make automobiles safer and more efficient.

Pneumatic tires–or tires filled with pressurized air–were used on motor vehicles beginning in the late 1800s, when the French rubber manufacturer Michelin & Cie became the first company to develop them. For the first 60 years of their use, pneumatic tires generally relied on an inner tube containing the compressed air and an outer casing that protected the tube and provided traction. The disadvantage of this design was that if the inner tube failed–which was always a risk due to excess heat generated by friction between the tube and the tire wall–the tire would blow out immediately, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle.

The culmination of more than three years of engineering, Goodrich’s tubeless tire effectively eliminated the inner tube, trapping the pressurized air within the tire walls themselves. By reinforcing those walls, the company claimed, they were able to combine the puncture-sealing features of inner tubes with an improved ease of riding, high resistance to bruising and superior retention of air pressure. While Goodrich awaited approval from the U.S. Patent Office, the tubeless tires underwent high-speed road testing, were put in service on a fleet of taxis and were used by Ohio state police cars and a number of privately owned passenger cars.

The testing proved successful, and in 1952, Goodrich won patents for the tire’s various features. Within three years, the tubeless tire came standard on most new automobiles. According to an article published in The New York Times in December 1954, “If the results of tests…prove valid in general use, the owner of a 1955 automobile can count on at least 25 per cent more mileage, easier tire changing if he gets caught on a lonely road with a leaky tire, and almost no blowouts.” The article quoted Howard N. Hawkes, vice president and general manager of the tire division of the United States Rubber Company, as calling the general adoption of the tubeless tire “one of the most far-reaching changes ever to take place in the tire industry.” The radial-ply tire, a tubeless model with walls made of alternating layers–also called plies–of tough rubber cord, was created by Michelin later that decade and is now considered the standard for automobiles in all developed countries.

There were similar designs before, but Goodrich received and successfully defended Patent No. US2859792 A.

On this day in 1955, Milwaukee formally loses a basketball team:

1955 – Milwaukee Hawks Relocate to St. Louis
On this date the NBA approved transferring the financially strapped Milwaukee Hawks to St. Louis. The Hawks stayed in St. Louis until 1968, then moved to Atlanta. [Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online]

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater looks to be beautiful, with sunny skies and a high of seventy-one. Sunrise is 5:38 AM and sunset 8:06 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with eighty-two percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The results of Friday’s FW poll, Friday Poll — Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford: Optimist or Reprobate? are now in: 78.57% of respondents doubted Ford’s supposed break with a troubled past.

Perhaps you’ve never seen a rabbit eating raspberries. You’re one click away from changing that:

On this day in 1869, America goes truly transcontinental:

The First Transcontinental Railroad (known originally as the “Pacific Railroad” and later as the “Overland Route“) was a 1,907-mile (3,069 km) contiguous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 across the western United States to connect the Pacific coast at San Francisco Bay with the existing Eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on theMissouri River. The rail line was built by three private companies: the original Western Pacific Railroad Company between Oakland and Sacramento, California (132 miles (212 km)), theCentral Pacific Railroad Company of California eastward from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory (U.T.) (690 miles), and the Union Pacific Railroad Company westward to Promontory Summit from the road’s statutory Eastern terminus at Council Bluffs on the eastern shore of the Missouri River opposite Omaha, Nebraska (1,085 miles).^[1][2][3]

Opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869, with the driving of the “Last Spike” with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit,^[4] the road established a mechanized transcontinental transportation network that revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West by bringing these western states and territories firmly and profitably into the “Union” and making goods and transportation much quicker, cheaper and much more flexible from coast to coast.

Good morning.

Morning showers on Friday will give way to a partly sunny day with a high of sixty-nine.

On this day in 1914, Pres. Wilson proclaims a holiday:

President Woodrow Wilson issues a presidential proclamation that officially establishes the first national Mother’s Day holiday to celebrate America’s mothers.

The idea for a “Mother’s Day” is credited by some to Julia Ward Howe (1872) and by others to Anna Jarvis (1907), who both suggested a holiday dedicated to a day of peace. Many individual states celebrated Mother’s Day by 1911, but it was not until Wilson lobbied Congress in 1914 that Mother’s Day was officially set on the second Sunday of every May. In his first Mother’s Day proclamation, Wilson stated that the holiday offered a chance to “[publicly express] our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”

On 5.9.1950, the first event at the Arena:

First Sporting Event Held at Milwaukee Arena
On this date, in the first sporting event at the new Milwaukee Arena, Rocky Graziano scored a fourth-round TKO over Vinnie Cidone in a middleweight fight that drew 12,813 fans. The new Milwaukee Arena actually opened on April 9, 1950, but with a civic celebration rather than a sports event. [Source: Milwaukee Journal].

Puzzability concludes its Cine-Ma series with Friday’s game:

This Week’s Game — May 5-9

Cine-Ma

It’s a Mom-and-Popcorn operation this Mother’s Day week. For each day, we started with the title of a movie and replaced all the letters with asterisks, except for letters that spell out the word MOTHER. (Those letters may appear elsewhere in the title as well.)

Example:

***M**  O*  T**  HE*R*

Answer:

Crimes of the Heart

What to Submit:

Submit the movie title (as “Crimes of the Heart” in the example) for your answer.

Friday, May 9

M**  ***  ***O**  TH***ER****

Good morning.

We’ll have a partly sunny day, with a high near 82, and just a one-in-five chance of thunderstorms later in the day.

It’s the anniversary of V-E Day:

On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.

The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark—the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.

Here’s the Thursday game from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — May 5-9

Cine-Ma

It’s a Mom-and-Popcorn operation this Mother’s Day week. For each day, we started with the title of a movie and replaced all the letters with asterisks, except for letters that spell out the word MOTHER. (Those letters may appear elsewhere in the title as well.)

Example:

***M**  O*  T**  HE*R*

Answer:

Crimes of the Heart

What to Submit:

Submit the movie title (as “Crimes of the Heart” in the example) for your answer.

Thursday, May 8

***  ******M  O*  TH*  **ER*