Good morning.

Our week starts with sunny skies and a high of twenty. There will be 9h 22m of sunlight, and 10h 24m of daylight, for Whitewater today. Tomorrow will be one minute longer.

How big do sharks get? Really big:

The city’s Planning Commission meets tonight at 6 PM, and her Library Board at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1784, a war formally ends:

….Continental Congress ratifies the Second Treaty of Paris, ending the War for Independence.

In the document, which was known as the Second Treaty of Paris because the Treaty of Paris was also the name of the agreement that had ended the Seven Years’ War in 1763, Britain officially agreed to recognize the independence of its 13 former colonies as the new United States of America.

In addition, the treaty settled the boundaries between the United States and what remained of British North America. U.S. fishermen won the right to fish in the Grand Banks, off the Newfoundland coast, and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Both sides agreed to ensure payment to creditors in the other nation of debts incurred during the war and to release all prisoners of war. The United States promised to return land confiscated during the war to its British owners, to stop any further confiscation of British property and to honor the property left by the British army on U.S. shores, including Negroes or slaves. Both countries assumed perpetual rights to access the Mississippi River.

Despite the agreement, many of these issues remained points of contention between the two nations in the post-war years. The British did not abandon their western forts as promised and attempts by British merchants to collect outstanding debts from Americans were unsuccessful as American merchants were unable to collect from their customers, many of whom were struggling farmers.

Google-a-Day poses a question about art: “What American museum paid $6.9 million to exhibit artwork on loan from the Louvre from 2006-2009?”

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of twenty-two.

On this day in 1128, Pope Honorius II

….grants a papal sanction to the military order known as the Knights Templar, declaring it to be an army of God.

Led by the Frenchman Hughes de Payens, the Knights Templar organization was founded in 1118. Its self-imposed mission was to protect Christian pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land during the Crusades, the series of military expeditions aimed at defeating Muslims in Palestine. The Templars took their name from the location of their headquarters, at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. For a while, the Templars had only nine members, mostly due to their rigid rules. In addition to having noble birth, the knights were required to take strict vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. In 1127, new promotional efforts convinced many more noblemen to join the order, gradually increasing its size and influence.

While the individual knights were not allowed to own property, there was no such restriction on the organization as a whole, and over the years many rich Christians gave gifts of land and other valuables to support the Knights Templar. By the time the Crusades ended unsuccessfully in the early 14th century, the order had grown extremely wealthy, provoking the jealousy of both religious and secular powers. In 1307, King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V combined to take down the Knights Templar, arresting the grand master, Jacques de Molay, on charges of heresy, sacrilege and Satanism. Under torture, Molay and other leading Templars confessed and were eventually burned at the stake. Clement dissolved the Templars in 1312, assigning their property and monetary assets to a rival order, the Knights Hospitalers. In fact, though, Philip and his English counterpart, King Edward II, claimed most of the wealth after banning the organization from their respective countries.

The modern-day Catholic Church has admitted that the persecution of the Knights Templar was unjustified and claimed that Pope Clement was pressured by secular rulers to dissolve the order. Over the centuries, myths and legends about the Templars have grown, including the belief that they may have discovered holy relics at Temple Mount, including the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant or parts of the cross from Christ’s crucifixion. The imagined secrets of the Templars have inspired various books and movies, including the blockbuster novel and film The Da Vinci Code.

Today marks the birth of the ‘oldest station in the nation’:

1922 – WHA Radio Founded
On this date the call letters of experimental station 9XM in Madison were replaced by WHA. This station dates back to 1917, making it “The oldest station in the nation.” [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers, edited by Sarah Davis McBride]

It’s history, too, from Google-a-Day: “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?”

Good morning.

It’s a breezy day for the Whippet City, with west winds of 15 to 20 mph, and gusts as high as 30 mph. The mercury will hit a high of about forty-five, then fall to around thirty-one by the late afternoon. We’ll have a strong likelihood of snow overnight, of about two inches.

It’s Sherlock Holmes’s 159th birthday this week, and CNN has published an article entitled, Become a Mastermind with Sherlock Holmes’ Help. The story features an interview with Maria Konnikova, author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes:

Much of Holmes’ appeal has always been his amazing mind — how he is able to solve a seemingly insurmountable mystery through simple observation and deep thought. Wouldn’t we all like to borrow from his bag of mental tricks?

Just imagine the possibilities if you put Holmes’ brain power to use in the workplace, the classroom or social situations. That’s the premise of Maria Konnikova’s fascinating new book, “Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes.” Konnikova, a columnist for Scientific American and a doctoral student in psychology, explores the latest science to dissect the inner workings of the iconic detective’s mind.

More about the book is available at her CNN interview and Konnikova’s website. Other work of hers is available at her blog and Scientific American.

Interesting, insightful, and simply fun.

On this day in 1932, the first woman won election to the U.S. Senate:

Ophelia Wyatt Caraway, a Democrat from Arkansas, becomes the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Caraway, born near Bakerville, Tennessee, had been appointed to the Senate two months earlier to fill the vacancy left by her late husband, Thaddeus Horatio Caraway. With the support of Huey Long, a powerful senator from Louisiana, Caraway was elected to the seat. In 1938, she was reelected. After failing to win renomination in 1944, she was appointed to the Federal Employees Compensation Commission by President Franklin Roosevelt.

Although she was the first freely elected female senator, Caraway was preceded in the Senate by Rebecca Latimer Felton, who was appointed in 1922 to fill a vacancy but never ran for election. Jeannette Rankin, elected to the House of Representatives as a pacifist from Montana in 1917, was the first woman to ever sit in Congress.

On this day in 1864, the American Civil War took a Wisconsin regiment to Mexico:

1864 – (Civil War) Engagement at Matamoras, Mexico
The 20th Wisconsin Infantry took part in a battle in Matamoras, Mexico. They crossed from Brownsville, Texas, to rescue the American consul in Matamoras when he was caught in a local uprising between two opposing Mexican forces.

Google-a-Day asks about a British naval tradition: “What is the term for the traditional ritual by which officers in the UK’s Royal Navy are retired?”

Good morning.

Whitewater will see a foggy morning, followed by a cloudy day, with a high of forty-seven today.

On this day in 1908, Pres. Roosevelt makes the Grand Canyon a national monument:

On this day in 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt places the Grand Canyon under public protection, declaring it a national monument. In a statement made during a visit to the Grand Canyon in 1903, Roosevelt indicated his intention to preserve one of America’s most unique natural sites. He urged Americans to “let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.”

Miners had discovered valuable mineral resources in the Grand Canyon in the 1800s, yet extraction was a dangerous and expensive task. At the beginning of the 20th century, mining claims waned while tourism increased. Photographers, writers and painters captured the Grand Canyon’s dramatic beauty in their works and, with improvements in transportation, the Grand Canyon became a popular tourist destination.

1887 – Aldo Leopold Born
On this date Aldo Leopold, a major player in the modern environmental movement,  was born. A conservationist, professor, and author, Leopold graduated from Yale University and worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Southwest. He rose to the rank of chief of operations. In 1924 he became associate director of the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison. In 1933 he was appointed chair of game management at the University of Wisconsin. In 1943, Leopold was instrumental in establishing the first U.S. soil conservation demonstration area, in Coon Valley in 1934. As a member of the state Conservation Commission, he was influential in the acquisition of natural areas by the state. His reflections on nature and conservation appear in A Sand County Almanac (1949). [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, p.227]

Google-a-Day has a sports question: “The basis of modern Fantasy Football was developed by Wilfred Winkenbach in 1962, laying the blueprint for a League that was known by what acronym?”