by Valerie Green –
Many significant things have happened in November throughout history. Here is just a sample of some of the fun historical trivia as we welcome in what is usually a dreary month of rain but also a time when we remember all those who have given their lives in military service.
Let’s begin in 1605. If you grew up in England, you will have celebrated Guy Fawkes Day on November 5 every year. This, of course, is the anniversary date of the failed Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London in 1605. How different life would have been had it succeeded!
Here in Canada on November 7, 1885, the first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific, was completed in British Columbia.
Margaret Mitchell, the author of my all-time favourite book, Gone With The Wind, was born on November 8, 1900. Did you know that her novel (the only one she ever wrote) sold over 10 million copies, was translated into 30 languages, and became one of the most popular movies of all time? Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for the book. She died in 1949 after being struck by a car in Atlanta.
One of the most memorable November events was the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Most people who were alive then remember exactly what they were doing when they heard that tragic news.
November is also Adoption Awareness Month, Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month, American Diabetes Month, COPD, Crohn’s & Ulcerative Colitis Awareness Month and Epilepsy Awareness Month – to name but a few.
On a lighter note, November is also known as “Fun With Fondue Month” and in more recent years it has also become “Movember,” a time when men grow beards and moustaches for charitable causes.
Unlike our Canadian Thanksgiving which is celebrated in October, American Thanksgiving occurs in late November but, surprisingly enough, the very early thanksgiving feasts were not made up of turkey and all the trimmings we all enjoy today.
Instead, those feasts might well have been comprised of some of the following: boiled lobster, roasted goose, corn meal pudding with dried whortleberries, boiled cod, roast duck, stewed pumpkin, roasted venison with mustard sauce, a savoury pudding of hominy and some fruit and Holland cheese. Somehow it doesn’t sound quite as appetizing as turkey, cranberry dressing and mashed potatoes followed by a slice of pumpkin pie!
November is of course the 11th month, as well as one of the four months in the year with only 30 days in it. If you were born this month, your star sign is either Scorpio or Sagittarius and your birth stone is topaz. And, on a romantic note, if you were born in the middle of November, there is every chance that you were conceived on St. Valentine’s Day!
Finally, one of my favourite quotes about November comes from Emily Dickinson, who once said: “November always seemed to me to be the Norway of the year.”
Valerie Green is an author/historian and can be reached at valgee@shaw.ca.
