Good morning.

Our week begins with a chance of flurries and a high of thirty-five.

Downtown Whitewater’s Design Committee meets this morning at 8 AM. The organization, generally, has new board members, and much of the year yet ahead. One hopes for the best.

Sometimes people chase storms, and sometimes, as in Mulwala, New South Wales, storms chase people. In the latter case, one gets a great video, with lots of explicit language from the surprised people:

Today is the 1911 anniversary of a notorious industrial fire:

…The Triangle factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, was located in the top three floors of the 10-story Asch Building in downtown Manhattan. It was 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.

Blanck and Harris already had a suspicious history of factory fires. The Triangle factory was twice scorched in 1902, while their Diamond Waist Company factory burned twice, in 1907 and in 1910. It seems that Blanck and Harris deliberately torched their workplaces before business hours in order to collect on the large fire-insurance policies they purchased, a not uncommon practice in the early 20th century. While this was not the cause of the 1911 fire, it contributed to the tragedy, as Blanck and Harris refused to install sprinkler systems and take other safety measures in case they needed to burn down their shops again….

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.

Blanck and Harris were on the building’s top floor with some workers when the fire broke out. They were able to escape by climbing onto the roof and hopping to an adjoining building.

Google asks a science question: “When birds remain airborne and gliding without flapping their wings, on what are they gliding?”

Good morning.

Snow is likely this Palm Sunday in Whitewater, with a daytime accumulation of less than an inch. If that forecast should prove correct, March 18th will remain our last day with accumulation over one inch.

The Punxsutawney Phil poll is now closed, over 81% of respondents believing him guilty following his recent criminal indictment in Ohio.

On this day in 1989, a huge oil spill off Alaska:

…one of the nation’s worst oil spills occurred as the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking 11 million gallons of crude.

Film fans may recall that Kevin Costner’s Waterworld (Universal, 1995) makes reference to the accident while depicting a dystopian future.

On this day in 1874,

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]

Google-a-Day poses a Civil War question: “What notable river was close by the campaign in which Lee defeated the much larger army led by Major General Joseph Hooker?”

Good morning.

Saturday will be mostly sunny with a high of thirty-five. There will be 12h 17m of sunlight, 13h 13m of daylight, and tomorrow will offer three minutes more.

From the east coast, video of a presumed meteor streaking across the sky:

…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. At the same time, the opposing Whig Party made use of “OK” to denigrate Van Buren’s political mentor Andrew Jackson. According to the Whigs, Jackson invented the abbreviation “OK” to cover up his own misspelling of “all correct.”

The man responsible for unraveling the mystery behind “OK” was an American linguist named Allen Walker Read. An English professor at Columbia University, Read dispelled a host of erroneous theories on the origins of “OK,” ranging from the name of a popular Army biscuit (Orrin Kendall) to the name of a Haitian port famed for its rum (Aux Cayes) to the signature of a Choctaw chief named Old Keokuk. Whatever its origins, “OK” has become one of the most ubiquitous terms in the world, and certainly one of America’s greatest lingual exports.

Google has a sports question: “In 1963, in London, looking for his 19th consecutive win, over 50,000 people came to see what athlete battle Henry Cooper?”

Good morning.

Friday brings sunny skies to Whitewater, with a high of thirty-two, and northwest winds at five miles per hour.

On this day in 1765, Britain imposed the Stamp Act on America. It was a bad idea:

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.

In Wisconsin history on this day, the father of a mysterious creature is born:

1854 – Eugene Shepard, Father of the Hodag
On this date Eugene Shepard was born near Green Bay. Although he made his career in the lumbering business near Rhinelander, he was best known for his story-telling and practical jokes. He told many tales of Paul Bunyan, the mythical lumberjack, and drew pictures of the giant at work that became famous. Shepard also started a new legend about a prehistoric monster that roamed the woods of Wisconsin – the hodag. Shepard built the mythical monster out of wood and bull’s horns. He fooled everyone into believing it was alive, allowing it to be viewed only inside a dark tent. The beast was displayed at the Wausau and Antigo county fairs before Shepard admitted it was all a hoax. [Source: Badger saints and sinners, by Fred L. Holmes, p.459-474]

Google-a-Day asks a question of history and language: “In 1578, a high lama of the Gelug school was given the name “Dalai Lama.” What does the Sino-Mongolian translation of “dalai” mean in English?”

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of twenty-eight. We’ll have 12h 12m of sunlight, 13h 8m of daylight, and a waxing gibbous moon.

On this day in 1965, Dr. King and over 3,000 marchers began trip from Selma to Montgomery – it was their third attempt, the first two having been met with violent state opposition:

Backed by the armed might of the United States, 3,200 persons marched out of Selma today on the first leg of a historic venture in nonviolent protest.

The marchers, or at least many of them, are on their way to the State Capitol at Montgomery to submit a petition for Negro rights Thursday to Gov. George C. Wallace, a man with little sympathy for their cause.

Today was the third attempt for the Alabama Freedom March. On the first two, the marchers were stopped by state troopers, the first time with tear gas and clubs.

The troopers were on hand today, but they limited themselves to helping Federal troops handle traffic on U.S. Highway 80 as the marchers left Selma.

Soldiers Line Highway

Hundreds of Army and federalized National Guard troops stood guard in Selma and lined the highway out of town to protect the marchers. The troops were sent by President Johnson after Governor Wallace said that Alabama could not afford the expense of protecting the march.

The marchers were in festive humor as they started. The tone was set by the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, top aide to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, as he introduced Dr. King for an address before the march started.

Google-a-Day asks a science question: “What is the binomial name of the tiny mammal of the family Craseonycteridae, genus Craseonycteris and species C. thonglongyai that is “hog-nosed?”

Good morning.

Spring arrives in Whitewater, on a day with chance of snow showers and a high of nineteen. (Monday, March 18th is the most recent day to have a snowfall accumulation of at least an inch.)

Whitewater’s Tech Park Board meets today at 8 AM.

CNN asks if this is the best golf shot ever:

Looking at it from this vantage, I’d say it’s very good, indeed.

On this day in 1778, Americans meet a (French) king:

Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee present themselves to France’s King Louis XVI as official representatives of the United States on this day in 1778. Louis XVI was skeptical of the fledgling republic, but his dislike of the British eventually overcame these concerns and France officially recognized the United States in February 1778.

Some of the great ironies of the American Revolution lay in the relationship between the new United States and the French. In 1774, when Parliament decided to offer religious toleration and judicial autonomy to French-speaking Catholics in Quebec, North American colonists expressed horror at the notion of empowered French Catholics on their borders. In 1778, though, Franklin, Deane and Lee, all proponents of democratic government, were delighted at the prospect that the French Catholic monarchy, ruling by divine right, would come to their aid in a war against British parliamentary rule.

On this day in 1854, the Republicans are born:

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]

Google tests one’s knowledge of Russian monuments: “In the Russian monument of the founder of Moscow, which hand is he holding out to the side?”