It's Thanksgiving Day, and I am thankful for a great many things. One of them is the chance to dig around in the dim mists of history, and sometimes that means separating history from myth. Decades ago I was taught the myth, with Pilgrims dressed in tall hats at Plymouth Plantation celebrating the first Thanksgiving in peace with their Indian neighbors in 1621. The truth is somewhat different. The Pilgrims didn't arrive until 1629, the Plymouth colony was settled by the Leyden Separatists. They didn't have many neighbors, they had been mostly wiped out by smallpox except for Squanto who had been in England when the epidemic broke out. They didn't pop corn, the maize the Indians taught them to grow didn't pop. They were certainly thankful for some things, but complained about the "indifferent" barley harvest and the peas "not worth the gathering." The first holiday to be called Thanksgiving didn't happen until 1676. The first national thanksgiving was proclaimed in 1762 by John Hanson, the first president of the US. The next one was proclaimed in 1789 by George Washington, the second "first president" of the US. My wife and I will eat well and be thankful, even with the myth debunked.
Otto I inherited the Duchy of Saxony, his son inherited the title Holy Roman Emperor. When Otto I was crowned with that title in 962 he envisioned an empire as great as Charlemagne had a century and a half before, and by a combination of military and political skill he built it.
The number of mangled limbs and painful deaths eliminated by an invention patented on this date is hard to estimate, but it's certainly a great many. The Dead Sea Scrolls first came to scholarly attention on this date, and a severe earthquake struck Italy twenty years ago today.
1897 - US Patent No. 594,059 was issued to Andrew Jackson Beard for the "Jenny coupler," a coupling that allowed to railroad cars to be connected simply by letting them bump into each other. Standing between two railroad cars as they were brought together, as had been necessary before this invention, was extremely dangerous to both life and limb. Beard had been born a slave in Alabama, and had worked in the rail yards before becoming an inventor.
1947 - Provessor Eliezer L. Sukenik of Jerusalem's Hebrew University first received word of the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The documents, dating between 200 BC and AD 70, had been accidentally discovered the previous winter (February 1947) by two Bedouin shepherds in the vicinity of Qumran.
1980 - A magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck Irpinia, Italy, killing over 3,000 and leaving 200,000 homeless. The response to the earthquake is still being studied - while significant resources were available there was no central coordination and charges of substantial corruption in handling the emergency were lodged. Ninety percent of those rescued were extricated by family or neighbors rather than rescue workers, many victims were still living in temporary shelters ten years later.
Kinro Kansha no Hi (Labour Thanksgiving Day), Japan - Designated a nation holiday in 1948 "for the people to honor labor, celebrate manufacturing and give thanks to one another." Combined with the much older Shinto Harvest Festival at which the Emperor dedicates the year's new rice to the gods and tastes the new harvest for the first time.
Thanksgiving Day, US - Established as an annual national holiday by Abraham Lincoln as the last Thursday of November in 1863, moved to the fourth Thursday of November by Franklin Roosevelt in 1939. Antecedents include the first Thanksgiving Day celebration in Charlestown, Massachusetts on 29 June 1676, John Hanson (first US president) and the Continental Congress declared one in 1782, and George Washington (first US president under current constitution) and Congress declared one in 1789.
912 - Otto I, German politician - Called Otto the Great, son of Henry I, Duke of Saxony (essentially the king of Germany), he succeeded his father in 936 and was immediately faced with a series of attacks by other nobles called the Ducal Rebellions, which were led by his brother Henry of Bavaria. He won in 941, broke up many of the hereditary fiefs and giving them to loyal relatives, abbots, and bishops on an appointed (rather than hereditary) basis, forging an alliance with the church with himself in charge. Marched to Italy in 951 to assist Queen Adelaide of Lombardy against the usurper Berengar II, prevailed, married Adelaide and became ruler of northern Italy. He next crushed another rebellion of nobles in Germany, this one led by his son Liudolf. He repulsed an invasion by the Magyars (Hungarians) in 955, using that invasion to tie the nobility to him for security. He was crowned Holy Roman Empire in 962 by Pope John XII, but the pope turned against Otto as his power grew, and Otto deposed the pope in 962 and, declaring that no pope could be elected without the approval of the emperor, arranged for Leo VIII to become pope. Failed to negotiate an alliance with the Byzantine Empire, but did marry his son Otto II to Theophano, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Romanus II. Ruled jointly with his son from 967, Otto II became both King of the Germans and Holy Roman Emperor on Otto I's death on 7 May 973.
Gratitude is like a warm blanket, it wards off the icy chill of discontent.
- C. Beaulieu
It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce,
a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity
of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it.
- Alistair Cooke
Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that
happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving
something bigger and better than your current situation.
- Brian Tracy
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that
gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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Copyright 2000 G. Armour Van Horn, all rights reserved. This document may be distributed freely. Please forward the complete message including this copyright notice.