For many in the U.S., the day after Thanksgiving is a time to go for some long walks or exercise to work off all the food eaten the day before. Many put up holiday lights while others head to do some shopping. Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday where stores open to the masses to sell products at deeply discounted prices. Alas with the inflation running high this year, most will keep to necessities. Only those with disposable income will be spending lots of money. Kim Kardashian will probably drop lots of money and then tweet out what she has bought to those who actually follow her.
Or you could sit back for a bit and have a bit of fun after all the heck you went through to get the materials for the feast, cook and serve to friends and family. Or that family member that grumbled they did not like the cranberry sauce since it did not come out of a can, or that the mashed potatoes were too mashed for their taste. So take step back and enjoy some humor. Here is the now infamous turkey drop scene from an old tv show called WKRP. The infamous turkey drop will never be forgotten. And of course all the poor fools who thought they knew how to deep fry turkey and instead ended up cooking something else entirely different.
Deep fried turkey tastes delicious but requires careful preparation. Far too many people put a turkey into the pot but fail in putting too much oil. The hot oil bubbles over the top, hits the ground and fires erupt. If your turkey fryer is too close to home, well it can be quite unfortunate. The most inane thing to do is put a frozen bird into hot oil. I am dumbfounded that people did not get this in their high school science class. Putting something cold, especially frozen, into a hot liquid will have explosive consequences. The safest way is simply to use a large deep fryer that sits on your counter top. You simply lower the meat into the oil, close the lid, and set the timer. There are indicator lines that show exactly how much oil to use. If you are going to use the open deep fryer, you have to follow those instructions carefully and make sure to use less oil than actually needed. And make sure to have lots of baking soda or the right fire extinguisher rated to put out oil based fires. Never use it indoors and always away from any structures. Keep children and pets away. A splash of hot oil on your skin will be very painful, so wear protective gear on your hands and even your face.
Home To Thanksgiving, Currier & Ives, 1867 Public Domain (U.S. Library of Congress, digital id# pga 00780)
Thanksgiving was not an official national holiday until 1863. A letter from a 74-year magazine editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, inspired President Abraham Lincoln to create a national holiday. She wrote in 1863 that we needed to have a national day of Thanksgiving so that everyone could celebrate it on the same day. At the time Thanksgiving was celebrated by the various states but not on the same date. She wanted President Lincoln to make it a national day so it would become a permanent part of “American custom and institution.”
According to Abraham Lincoln Online , other presidents had ignored such requests. Lincoln decided to act on her request and directed a proclamation be drawn up. On 3 October 1863, President Lincoln’s proclamation that establishes Thanksgiving as a national day was issued. It sets aside the last Thursday of November as a “day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Secretary of State William Seward actually drafted the proclamation which Lincoln signed. Thanksgiving became a national holiday and was celebrated on that date until 1939. President Roosevelt in 1939, 1940 and 1941 changed it to the third Thursday (to extend the Christmas season) causing considerable controversy. A joint resolution of Congress in 1941 resolved it by decreeing Thanksgiving would fall on the fourth Thursday of November.
(Scene from the 1942 movie Holiday Inn starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. At the time the movie was made in 1941, Thanksgiving had shifted back and forth starting in 1939. This animation from the movie illustrates this perfectly.)
Lincoln’s proclamation was written during the American Civil War, a terrible time in U.S. history. Today we forget why this day was made a national holiday. It was to thank God for the blessings of liberty but also to ask his help. In our politically correct times, this proclamation is not always read in full or edited. So here is the original proclamation. Read it and understand why Lincoln thought a national day of Thanksgiving was needed for the United States of America.
— Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day October 3, 1863
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth. A. Lincoln
HMHS Britannic seen during World War I. Image:public domain
On 21 November 1916, HMHS Britannic was sunk by mine near the island of Kea in the Aegean Sea. The ship sank in 55 minutes and 1,035 people were rescued, only 30 perished. Britannic was the third and last ship of the Olympic class liners built by White Star Line. The other two were Olympic and Titanic. Britannic was launched in February 1914. Many design changes were made prior to launch due to lessons learned from Titanic. Those changes were:
Double hull along the engine and boiler rooms raising six of the watertight bulkheads up to B deck.
More powerful turbine installed due to increase in hull width.
Watertight compartments were enhanced so that the ship can stay afloat with six compartments flooded.
Motorized davits to launch six lifeboats (only five out of eight were installed before war service). Manual operated davits were used for the remaining lifeboats. The new design also allowed all lifeboats to be launched even if the ship was listing. There were 55 lifeboats with capacity for 75 each so that 3,600 people could be carried.
When World War I broke out, the ship had to be retrofitted as a hospital ship. Most of the furnishings were stored in a warehouse to be placed back aboard after the war. The Britannic began service as a hospital ship on 12 December 1915. She was sent to the Aegean Sea to bring back sick and wounded soldiers. Her first tour of service was ended on 6 June 1916 and she was sent back to Belfast to be refitted back as a passenger liner. As this was underway, the ship was again recalled to military service on 26 August 1916 and was sent back to the Mediterranean Sea.
On the morning of 21 November 1916, the Britannic under the command of Captain Alfred Barnett was steaming into the Kea Channel when at 8:12 am a loud explosion shook the ship. The explosion, unknown at the time whether it was a torpedo or mine, damaged the first four watertight compartments and rapidly filled with water. Water was also flowing into the boiler room. Captain Bartlett ordered the watertight doors closed, sent a distress call, and ordered the lifeboats be prepared. Unfortunately, while they could send messages, damage to the antenna wires meant they could not hear the responses back from ships responding to their SOS. Britannic was reaching her flooding limit and open portholes (opened by nurses to ventilate wards) were bringing more water in as well.
As the ship was still moving, Bartlett did not order lifeboats be lowered but two lifeboats were lowered anyway. They were sucked into the ships propellor and torn to bits killing everyone in those two lifeboats. Bartlett ordered the ship stopped to assess the damage. The ship was listing so badly that the gantry davits were inoperable. Thinking the sinking had slowed, he ordered the engines back on to try and beach the ship. The flooding increased as more water was coming in aided by the open portholes the nurses had opened to air out their wards early in the morning. Bartlett ordered the engines stopped and to abandon ship. She would sink at 9:07 am, 55 minutes after the explosion. Thankfully the water temperature was high (70 F), they had more lifeboats than Titanic, and rescue came less than two hours. Nearby fisherman were able to help and at 10:00 am, the HMS Scourge arrived and later the HMS Heroic and later the HMS Foxhound.
1,035 survived. Of the 30 lost, only five were buried as their bodies were not recovered. Memorials in Thessaloniki and London honor those lives lost. Survivors were housed on the warships and the nurses and officers were put into hotels. Most survivors were sent home, and some arrived in time for Christmas. Speculation about whether it was a torpedo or a mine was resolved when it was learned that a German submarine (SM U-73) had planted mines in the Kea Channel in October 1916. The loss of two Olympic class ships was a major blow to White Star Line. They would get, as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, the German ocean liner Bismarck (renamed Majestic), which replaced Britannic. They also got Columbus which was named Homeric.
Britannic has been largely forgotten except when news of expeditions were made to the wreck site over the years. The wreck itself was bought by noted author Simon Mills, who has written two books on the ship. An expedition in September 2003 located by sonar mine anchors confirming German records of U-73 that Britannic was sunk by a single mine. The expedition found several watertight doors open making it likely the mine strike was during a watch change on the ship. One notable survivor was Violet Jessop. She had been on Olympic as stewardess when it collided with the HMS Hawke, aboard Titanic in the same capacity when it sank, and then aboard Britannic as a stewardess with the Red Cross.
Chirnside, Mark (2011) [2004]. The Olympic-Class Ships. Stroud: Tempus
Lord, Walter (2005) [1955]. A Night to Remember. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin
Mills, Simon (2019). Exploring the Britannic: The Life, Last Voyage and Wreck of Titanic’s Tragic Twin. London: Adlard Coles
Bridge In Autumn Forest Image: Lilla Frerichs publicdomainpictures.net
For those following the liturgical calendar, this is the last day of ordinary time in most Christian churches. Next Sunday is the start of a new liturgical year and is the first Sunday of Advent for those that follow that calendar (Eastern Orthodox uses the old Julian calendar, so they are 13 days behind. For 2023, Christmas Eve will be on January 6 and Christmas Day on January 7.)
Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. is this coming Thursday, November 24.
Photo: Public Domain (U.S. Library of Congress, digital id# cph.3a53289)
On 19 November 1863 President Abraham Lincoln delivered what would be the most memorable speech given by a president in U.S. history. He was attending the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery (now called Gettysburg National Cemetery) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Four and a half months prior the Battle of Gettysburg had taken place resulting in a major victory for the Union armies. The casualties to both sides were considerable. It also had the highest number of Confederate and Union generals who died in battle as well.
Edward Everett, the best orator of the time, delivered a two hour speech preceding Lincoln’s. When Lincoln spoke, it was only for a few minutes. His speech was only 271 words long after the long speech of Everett’s, so it could have been easily forgotten. People attending gave different accounts of how it was received. Some said a dignified silence, others polite applause. Edward Everett thought it was well done and said so to Lincoln in a letter. Once the text got out to the general public, Democrat leaning newspapers derided it while Republican ones praised. The Times of London thought it a ludicrous speech.
Yet this speech would become famous. It would become oft quoted and praised by many as time went on. Far from being ludicrous, as the Times of London thought it was, it became a standard for other orators to try and emulate. And his eloquent words: “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, shall not perish from the earth,” are still stirring to this day.
The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
19 November 1863
Sources:
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln. www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm.
“Gettysburg Address | Text and Context.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Nov. 2023, www.britannica.com/event/Gettysburg-Address.
“President Lincoln Delivers Gettysburg Address.” HISTORY, 10 Mar. 2010, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-delivers-gettysburg-address.
Part of Team Resolute alongside BMT and Navantia UK, Harland & Wolff was selected as the preferred bidder for the Ministry of Defence’s £1.6bn contract to manufacture three vessels providing munitions, stores and provisions to the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates. Harland & Wolff’s Belfast shipyard will construct all three 216-metre-long vessels, which upon completion, will be the second longest UK military vessels behind the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
Stonehouse later recalled that he was neither surprised by the conversation itself, nor really by the fact it happened off the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Because in the last four decades, the Marquette resident has learned that the fate of the Fitzgerald can and probably will be discussed anytime and anywhere.
A pocket watch that stopped at the very moment its owner went down with the Titanic has surfaced for sale for a whopping £100,000. Oscar Woody perished along with 1,520 others when the ill-fated ship struck an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic in 1912. Mr Woody served as the postmaster on the Titanic. As the liner started to sink he and four colleagues made a futile attempt to save hundreds of mailbags by carrying them to the upper decks. Andrew Aldridge said: ‘We are getting a considerable amount of interest in this item already.This is probably one of the most iconic and important items of Titanic memorabilia offered for auction in recent years.”
Suez Canal, between Kantara and El-Fedane. The first vessels through the Canal. Image Source: Appleton’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 1869 Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
When the Suez Canal officially opened to ships on 17 November 1869, it changed forever how important cargo and passengers would reach Asia. Up until it opened, ships went down the African coast to Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa (where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet), to enter Asia. It was certainly a shorter trek than going overland (which used to be the case until the Ottoman Empire closed them off forcing Europeans to find alternative routes to get spices from Asia) but still took a while especially when you had to rely on wind and current to get you there. The Suez Canal cut the travel time substantially and only ships that could not fit into the canal would have to take the longer route.
The genesis of the Suez Canal began in 1854 when Ferdinand de Lesseps (former French consul to Cairo), negotiated a treaty with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal 1oo miles across the Suez isthmus. Plans were drawn up by an international team of engineers and c0nstruction began in 1859. The Suez Canal Company (formed 1856) was given the right to operate the canal for 99 years. Initial work was done by hand, making it slow until dredgers and steam shovels arrived from Europe. Both labor disputes and a cholera epidemic slowed construction causing a four-year delay in getting it completed. When it opened in 1869, it was only 25 feet deep, 75 feet wide at the bottom, and 200-300 feet wide on the surface. This resulted in less than 500 ships using it the first year. Major improvements would be made in 1876 that allowed for nearly all the ships of the day (and today as well) to pass through it. The Suez Canal became one of the most heavily trafficked shipping lanes in the world.
Aftermath
The British decided to get control of the Suez Canal. In 1875, Great Britain bought the stock of the new Ottoman governor making them the largest shareholder in the Suez Canal Company. When they invaded and took control of Egypt in 1882, they took control of the Suez Canal as well. Later under the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, the Egyptian government (now nearly independent of England), Britain retained rights to protect the canal. In July 1956 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal. This resulted in the Suez Crisis of 1956 in which Israel invaded Egypt and British and French troops arrived to occupy the Canal Zone. In 1957, both Britain and France withdrew under international pressure and in March 1957, the canal was once again open to commercial traffic. It would shut again in 1967 during the Six Day War. Tensions between Egypt and Israel would make the Suez Canal a front line between both parties. In 1975 Anwar Sadat would reopen the canal as a gesture of peace and negotiate a peace treaty with Israel. Today the canal plays a vital role in shipping cargo from Asia to Europe and North America. Its strategic importance is recognized by all powers in the region occasionally causing scuffles or even attacks by belligerents wanting to disrupt oil and cargo shipments.
Sources:
Smith, Charles Gordon, and William B. Fisher. “Suez Canal | History, Map, Importance, Length, Depth, and Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Nov. 2023, www.britannica.com/topic/Suez-Canal.
Opening Nov. 11, 2022, in Manhattan, this exhibit will feature life-size replicas of the Titanic, allowing you to slip into the depths of history. The free audio tour will guide you through this internationally known exhibit, which lasts about 80- to 90-minutes.
A postcard where a passenger on the doomed Titanic tells his wife ‘this is the last thing you will hear from me’ is to go under the hammer. The message was written by second class passenger Jacob Milling from his hotel room in Southampton and was sent the day before he boarded the ill-fated liner. Mr. Milling, an engineer who was travelling to America to study railway machinery for two months, described to wife Augusta how he could see the world’s biggest passenger ship from his window. He wrote: “Dear Augusta! This is the last thing you will hear from me from this side of the Atlantic.
The auction is being held by Henry Aldridge & Sons on 19 Nov 2022. The offering price is £7,000.
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Just for fun
It turns out some well known things other than Titanic came from Belfast. Here is an article you might find interesting and amusing.
Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957) German Federal Archives via Wikimedia
On 16 November 1941, Joseph Goebbels publishes in the German magazine Das Reich that the “Jews wanted the war, and now they have it.” This was part of the Nazi propaganda scheme to shift blame for the war to Jews and thus rationalizing the Final Solution–the elimination of Jews. German soldiers and the SS were infused with this propaganda and anti-Communist rhetoric to carry out their task of eliminating the Jews with enthusiasm.
[T]he prophecy which the Fuhrer made…that should international finance Jewry succeed in plunging the nations into a world war once again, the result would not be the Bolshevization of the world…but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe. We are in the midst of that process…Compassion or regret are entirely out of place here.
The SS Arthur M. Anderson, the ship that was following the Edmund Fitzgerald on that fateful night of 10 November 1975. And the last ship that had communication with her. She was also one of the first ships to go in search of the ship. Here she is entering the Duluth Canal on that same night in 2020. The night is cold and snowy, and the water is sloshing around quite a bit on the lake and in the canal due to a storm. Despite the cold, some brave people went out to see the ship enter. She gives off the master salute to the harbor. One of the people there started playing the famous Lightfoot song adding more to the occasion.
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