Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny and hot, with a high of ninety-two and a heat index near one-hundred.

On this day in 1883, the largest volcanic eruption recorded kills tens of thousands:

The most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occurs on Krakatau (also called Krakatoa), a small, uninhabited volcanic island located west of Sumatra in Indonesia, on this day in 1883. Heard 3,000 miles away, the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into the air, created 120-foot tsunamis and killed 36,000 people.

Krakatau exhibited its first stirrings in more than 200 years on May 20, 1883. A German warship passing by reported a seven-mile high cloud of ash and dust over Krakatau. For the next two months, similar explosions would be witnessed by commercial liners and natives on nearby Java and Sumatra. With little to no idea of the impending catastrophe, the local inhabitants greeted the volcanic activity with festive excitement.

On August 26 and August 27, excitement turned to horror as Krakatau literally blew itself apart, setting off a chain of natural disasters that would be felt around the world for years to come. An enormous blast on the afternoon of August 26 destroyed the northern two-thirds of the island; as it plunged into the Sunda Strait, between the Java Sea and Indian Ocean, the gushing mountain generated a series of pyroclastic flows (fast-moving fluid bodies of molten gas, ash and rock) and monstrous tsunamis that swept over nearby coastlines. Four more eruptions beginning at 5:30 a.m. the following day proved cataclysmic. The explosions could be heard as far as 3,000 miles away, and ash was propelled to a height of 50 miles. Fine dust from the explosion drifted around the earth, causing spectacular sunsets and forming an atmospheric veil that lowered temperatures worldwide by several degrees.

Of the estimated 36,000 deaths resulting from the eruption, at least 31,000 were caused by the tsunamis created when much of the island fell into the water. The greatest of these waves measured 120 feet high, and washed over nearby islands, stripping away vegetation and carrying people out to sea. Another 4,500 people were scorched to death from the pyroclastic flows that rolled over the sea, stretching as far as 40 miles, according to some sources.

On this day in 1878, The United States issues a patent for the typewriter:

On this date Christopher Latham Sholes patented the typewriter. The idea for this invention began at Kleinsteuber’s Machine Shop in Milwaukee in the late 1860s. A mechanical engineer by training, Sholes, along with associates Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé, spent hours tinkering with the idea. They mounted the key of an old telegraph instrument on a base and tapped down on it to hit carbon & paper against a glass plate. This idea was simple, but in 1868 the mere idea that type striking against paper might produce an image was a novelty. Sholes proceeded to construct a machine to reproduce the entire alphabet. The prototype was sent to Washington as the required Patent Model.

This original model still exists at the Smithsonian. Investor James Densmore provided the marketing impetus which eventually brought the machine to the Remington Arms Company. Although Remington mass-marketed his typewriter begining in 1874, it was not an instant success. A few years later, improvements made by Remington engineers gave the machine its market appeal and sales skyrocketed. [Source: Wisconsin Lore and Legends, p.41]

For the week of August 26 to 30, Puzzability offers a back-to-school series entitled, Welcome, students:

Welcome, Students
For this week’s class act, we started each day with a word or phrase, added the seven letters in the word STUDENT, and rearranged all the letters to get a new phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.
Example:
Skating venues; Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man love interest
Answer:
Rinks; Kirsten Dunst
What to Submit:
Submit both pieces, with the shorter one first (as “Rinks; Kirsten Dunst” in the example), for your answer.

Here’s today’s puzzle:

Tuesday, August 27
Learned person; star of TV’s Roc

Good morning.

Our week begins with sunny and hot skies, a high of ninety, and southwest winds around 10 mph.

On this day in 1920, the 19th Amendment went into effect, with no public, signing ceremony beforehand:

Washington, Aug. 26 — The half-century struggle for woman suffrage in the United States reached its climax at 8 o’clock this morning, when Bainbridge Colby, as Secretary of State, issued his proclamation announcing that the Nineteenth Amendment had become a part of the Constitution of the United States.

The signing of the proclamation took place at that hour at Secretary Colby’s residence, 1507 K Street Northwest, without ceremony of any kind, and the issuance of the proclamation was unaccompanied by the taking of movies or other pictures, despite the fact that the National Woman’s Party, or militant branch of the general suffrage movement, had been anxious to be represented by a delegation of women and to have the historic event filmed for public display and permanent record.

It’s more than funny that the New York Times account refers to the National Woman’s Party as a militant movement. Our definition of that term has changed.

We think of sharks as swimmers, but some of them look more like walkers:

For the week of August 26 to 30, Puzzability offers a back-to-school series entitled, Welcome, students:

Welcome, Students
For this week’s class act, we started each day with a word or phrase, added the seven letters in the word STUDENT, and rearranged all the letters to get a new phrase. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the shorter one first.
Example:
Skating venues; Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man love interest
Answer:
Rinks; Kirsten Dunst
What to Submit:
Submit both pieces, with the shorter one first (as “Rinks; Kirsten Dunst” in the example), for your answer.

Here’s today’s puzzle:

Monday, August 26
Pickled Korean specialty dish; wet blanket

Good morning.

Whitewater will have a sunny Sunday, with a high of eighty-eight. Sunrise was at 6:12 AM and sunset will be 7:41 PM. The moon is in a waning gibbous phase with 75% of its visible disk illuminated.

And of the moon, on this day in 1835, a Great Moon Hoax began:

On this day in 1835, the first in a series of six articles announcing the supposed discovery of life on the moon appears in the New York Sun newspaper.

Known collectively as “The Great Moon Hoax,” the articles were supposedly reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The byline was Dr. Andrew Grant, described as a colleague of Sir John Herschel, a famous astronomer of the day. Herschel had in fact traveled to Capetown, South Africa, in January 1834 to set up an observatory with a powerful new telescope. As Grant described it, Herschel had found evidence of life forms on the moon, including such fantastic animals as unicorns, two-legged beavers and furry, winged humanoids resembling bats. The articles also offered vivid description of the moon’s geography, complete with massive craters, enormous amethyst crystals, rushing rivers and lush vegetation….

Readers were completely taken in by the story, however, and failed to recognize it as satire. The craze over Herschel’s supposed discoveries even fooled a committee of Yale University scientists, who traveled to New York in search of the Edinburgh Journal articles. After Sun employees sent them back and forth between the printing and editorial offices, hoping to discourage them, the scientists returned to New Haven without realizing they had been tricked.

On September 16, 1835, the Sun admitted the articles had been a hoax. People were generally amused by the whole thing, and sales of the paper didn’t suffer….