Author: Staff

Video: U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute into Milwaukee Airshow

While sleek machines filled the skies above downtown at high speed, not all participants in the 2017 Milwaukee Air and Water Show had wings. Known as the Golden Knights, members of the elite United States Army Parachute Team preformed demonstrations over Milwaukee’s lakefront on July 15 and 16. The Milwaukee Independent filmed the Golden Knights on July 14 and 15, during a practice jump that was cancelled due to weather conditions and a live jump for spectators at the Airshow. The video report includes helmet camera footage from Staff Sergeant Travis Downing, member of the Black Demonstration Team for...

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Satellite images show view of Bucks Arena from space

It has been just over a decade since Google Maps first put satellite imagery within reach of a web browser in 2005, allowing Milwaukee residents a look at city landmarks from the edge of space. While aerial photography remained the easiest means for decades that consumers could get a high altitude look at the Brew City, aside from actually being in an airplane, the view from space is now as close as a pocket containing a mobile device. This method provides a time lapse of sorts for seeing the development of Milwaukee over the past decade. From Earth’s orbit,...

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MPS combines recreation and community at Run Back to School fundraiser

Milwaukee Public Schools will host its 10th Annual Run Back to School event on August 26 at Wick Play field. Participants can enjoy a 5K run or 1.5 mile walk through Washington Park, in what has become a pre-school year kick-off activity. The goal has been to promote the importance of regular exercise while raising funds for MPS youth recreation programs. In addition to the run/walk, the event will feature a school mascot race, exhibit booths, activities for kids, and a live DJ. “The Run Back to School is a great opportunity for students, staff, and the community to...

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Abraham Lincoln’s 1859 Speech at the Wisconsin State Fair

In 1858 Abraham Lincoln lost a contested election to Stephen A. Douglas for Senator in Illinois. But he won accolades and respect for his clever and shrewd campaign. The nation knew him as a rising politician. As a result, he was invited the following year to speak at the Wisconsin State Fair. At that time in 1859, the event was held on the Brockway ground at 12th Street and Grand Avenue. Today, that location is the Marquette University campus. A marker commemorating his address can be found at the corner of 13th Street and Wells Street. A year later,...

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Girl Scout troop honors legacy of Meta Schlichting Berger with monument

The transformative political activist Meta Schlichting Berger was remembered by a new generation of young girls, who memorialized the prominent educator’s lasting influence with a new memorial at Forest Home Cemetery on June 24. The members of Cudahy Girl Scout Troop 8617 worked over the past two years to raise the $800 needed to install a stone marker at Berger’s gave site. Buried alongside her husband and socialist politician Victor, she was documented by historians as expressly forbidding any memorials to her as “a frivolous expense.” But to the girls who were in the fourth grade at the time,...

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Alexis Twito: Chaplains on the frontline of healing

Standing as a bridge between police who struggle to express compassion while applying enforcement of the law and a grieving community raw with pain and limited resources to cope are the 51 Chaplains of The Salvation Army, and the program’s coordinator Pastor Alexis Twito.

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