Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of thirty-eight, with south winds from 10 to 15 mph in the morning.

Later this afternoon, the Community Development Authority board is scheduled to meet at 5 PM.

On this day in 1953, a medical accomplishment becomes public:

On March 26, 1953, American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. In 1952–an epidemic year for polio–there were 58,000 new cases reported in the United States, and more than 3,000 died from the disease. For promising eventually to eradicate the disease, which is known as “infant paralysis” because it mainly affects children, Dr. Salk was celebrated as the great doctor-benefactor of his time.

In Wisconsin history on this day in 1881, a famous mascot dies in an accident:

1881 – Old Abe Dies
On this date Old Abe, famous Civil War mascot, died from injuries sustained during a fire at the State Capitol. Old Abe was the mascot for Company C, an Eau Claire infantry unit that was part of the Wisconsin 8th Regiment. During the Capitol fire of 1881, smoke engulfed Old Abe’s cage. One of his feathers survived and is in the Wisconsin Historical Museum. [Source: Wisconsin Lore and Legends, pg. 51]

Puzzability‘s March Madness series is at its halfway point:

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.

Wednesday, March 26

At a pivotal point in the film Shine, what composer’s difficult Piano Concerto No. 3 is performed in competition?

Good morning.

It’s spring, but Tuesday will be a blustery day with a high of twenty-five. Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 7:13 PM. The moon’s a waning crescent with 32% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today in town, the Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1911, America experiences one of her worst industrial tragedies:

In one of the darkest moments of America’s industrial history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burns down, killing 145 workers, on this day in 1911….

The Triangle factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, was located in the top three floors of the 10-story Asch Building in dowas a sweatshop in every sense of the word: a cramped space lined with work stations and packed with poor immigrant workers, mostly teenaged women who did not speak English. At the time of the fire, there were four elevators with access to the factory floors, but only one was fully operational and it could hold only 12 people at a time. There were two stairways down to the street, but one was locked from the outside to prevent theft by the workers and the other opened inward only. The fire escape, as all would come to see, was shoddily constructed, and could not support the weight of more than a few women at a time….

On March 25, a Saturday afternoon, there were 600 workers at the factory when a fire broke out in a rag bin on the eighth floor. The manager turned the fire hose on it, but the hose was rotted and its valve was rusted shut. Panic ensued as the workers fled to every exit. The elevator broke down after only four trips, and women began jumping down the shaft to their deaths. Those who fled down the wrong set of stairs were trapped inside and burned alive. Other women trapped on the eighth floor began jumping out the windows, which created a problem for the firefighters whose hoses were crushed by falling bodies. Also, the firefighters’ ladders stretched only as high as the seventh floor, and their safety nets were not strong enough to catch the women, who were jumping three at a time.

Puzzability‘s March Madness series continues with Tuesday’s game:

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.

Tuesday, March 25

What Discovery Channel series was about severe weather in Tornado Alley?

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.