Huffington Post  | By Emily Cohn

Eleanor Roosevelt watches as the President operates on the big turkey, setting in motion the annual Thanksgiving feast at Warm Springs, Georgia.November 29, 1935

For those who deride America's biggest retail companies for ruining Thanksgiving by offering Black Friday "door busters" smack dab in the middle of the holiday, that's hardly the worst of it.

Many decades ago retailers actually managed to convince the president to change the date of the holiday in order to get people to shop more.

In 1939 during the Great Depression, then President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day a week earlier to give Americans an extra week to do their Christmas shopping.

That year, Thanksgiving would have fallen on November 30, the last day of the month. That meant there were fewer days than usual between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Fearing that the shortened holiday shopping season might further crimp the economy, FDR simply moved the date.

At the time, the president said that retailers had pushed him to move Thanksgiving because the holiday fell too close to Christmas. He justified his decision by acknowledging "there was nothing sacred about the date," according to an Associated Press story that appeared on the front page of the New York Times on August 15, 1939.

FDR moved Thanksgiving in 1939.

There was, of course, much opposition. According to the AP story, the town of Plymouth, Mass., where the first Thanksgiving holiday was celebrated, was staunchly opposed. The move also "provided a headache... for football schedule makers," who had already scheduled games to be played on the day they thought would be Thanksgiving. Sixteen states refused to accept the president's proclamation, and kept Thanksgiving on its normal day. Overall 59 per cent of Americans objected to it, according to a Gallup poll.

The change was so unpopular FDR reversed his plan less than two years later, admitting that his Thanksgiving experiment didn't do much to help the retail industry.

In 1942, Thanksgiving went back to its old date, and today the holiday is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.

"Some people never forgave him,” Geoffrey C. Ward, author of "The Roosevelts," told The Huffington Post.

FDR announced in 1941 that he was moving Thanksgiving back to its original date.

Though today, there's no talk of moving Thanksgiving earlier in the month to satisfy corporate America, the effort to make the holiday shopping season longer is still alive and well.

Last year, Thanksgiving once again fell late in the month, a "glitch" that retailers worried would cost them billions. In response, many stores opened for the first time on Thanksgiving Day and holiday spending actually increased over the previous year.

So in a way, Roosevelt was right. Even though his experiment didn't totally pan out, it was only a matter of time before retailers got their stranglehold on Thanksgiving once again.

How FDR Commercialized Thanksgiving

Edward II lacked the royal dignity of his father and failed miserably as king. He inherited his father's war with Scotland and displayed his ineptitude as a soldier. Disgruntled barons, already wary of Edward as Prince of Wales, sought to check his power from the beginning of his reign. He raised the ire of the nobility by lavishing money and other rewards upon his male favourites. Such extreme unpopularity would eventually cost Edward his life.
Edward I's dream of a unified British nation quickly disintegrated under his weak son. Baronial rebellion opened the way for Robert Bruce to reconquer much of Scotland. In 1314, Bruce defeated English forces at the battle of Bannockburn and ensured Scottish independence until the union of England and Scotland in 1707. Bruce also incited rebellion in Ireland and reduced English influence to the confines of the Pale.
Edward's preference for surrounding himself with outsiders harkened back to the troubled reign of Henry III. The most notable was Piers Gaveston, a young Gascon exiled by Edward I for his undue influence on the Prince of Wales and, most likely, the king's homosexual lover. The arrogant and licentious Gaveston wielded considerable power after being recalled by Edward. The magnates, alienated by the relationship, rallied in opposition behind the king's cousin, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster; the Parliaments of 1310 and 1311 imposed restrictions on Edward's power and exiled Gaveston. The barons revolted in 1312 and Gaveston was murdered - full rebellion was avoided only by Edward's acceptance of further restrictions. Although Lancaster shared the responsibilities of governing with Edward, the king came under the influence of yet another despicable favourite, Hugh Dispenser. In 1322, Edward showed a rare display of resolve and gathered an army to meet Lancaster at the Battle of Borough bridge in Yorkshire. Edward prevailed and executed Lancaster. He and Dispenser ruled the government but again acquired many enemies - 28 knights and barons were executed for rebelling and many exiled.
Edward sent his queen, Isabella, to negotiate with her brother, French king Charles IV, regarding affairs in Gascony. She fell into an open romance with Roger Mortimer, one of Edward's disaffected barons, and persuaded Edward to send their young son to France. The rebellious couple invaded England in 1326 and imprisoned Edward. The king was deposed in 1327, replaced by his son, Edward III, and murdered in September at Berkeley castle.
Sir Richard Baker, in reference to Edward I in A Chronicle of the Kings of England, makes a strong indictment against Edward II: "His great unfortunateness was in his greatest blessing; for of four sons which he had by his Queen Eleanor, three of them died in his own lifetime, who were worthy to have outlived him; and the fourth outlived him, who was worthy never to have been born."

Copyright ©2011 Britannia.com, LLC

Edward II

Edward I, nicknamed "Longshanks" due to his great height and stature, was perhaps the most successful of the medieval monarchs. The first twenty years of his reign marked a high point of cooperation between crown and community. In these years, Edward made great strides in reforming government, consolidating territory, and defining foreign policy. He possessed the strength his father lacked and reasserted royal prerogative. Edward fathered many children as well: sixteen by Eleanor of Castille before her death in 1290, and three more by Margaret.
Edward held to the concept of community, and although at times unscrupulously aggressive, ruled with the general welfare of his subjects in mind. He perceived the crown as judge of the proper course of action for the realm and its chief legislator; royal authority was granted by law and should be fully utilized for the public good, but that same law also granted protection to the king's subjects. A king should rule with the advice and consent of those whose rights were in question. The level of interaction between king and subject allowed Edward considerable leeway in achieving his goals.
Edward I added to the bureaucracy initiated by Henry II to increase his effectiveness as sovereign. He expanded the administration into four principal parts: the Chancery, the Exchequer, the Household, and the Council. The Chancery researched and created legal documents while the Exchequer received and issued money, scrutinized the accounts of local officials, and kept financial records. These two departments operated within the king's authority but independently from his personal rule, prompting Edward to follow the practice of earlier kings in developing the Household, a mobile court of clerks and advisers that travelled with the king. The King's Council was the most vital segment of the four. It consisted of his principal ministers, trusted judges and clerks, a select group of magnates, and also followed the king. The Council dealt with matters of great importance to the realm and acted as a court for cases of national importance.
Edward's forays into the refinement of law and justice had important consequences in decreasing feudal practice. The Statute of Gloucester (1278) curbed expansion of large private holdings and established the principle that all private franchises were delegated by, and subordinate to, the crown. Royal jurisdiction became supreme: the Exchequer developed a court to hear financial disputes, the Court of Common Pleas arose to hear property disputes, and the Court of the King's Bench addressed criminal cases in which the king had a vested interest. Other statutes prohibited vassals from giving their lands to the church, encouraged primogeniture, and established the king as the sole person who could make a man his feudal vassal. In essence, Edward set the stage for land to become an article of commerce.
Edward concentrated on an aggressive foreign policy. A major campaign to control Llywelyn ap Gruffydd of Wales began in 1277 and lasted until Llywelyn's death in 1282. Wales was divided into shires, English civil law was introduced, and the region was administered by appointed justices. In the manner of earlier monarchs, Edward constructed many new castles to ensure his conquest. In 1301, the king's eldest son was named Prince of Wales, a title still granted to all first-born male heirs to the crown. Edward found limited success in extending English influence into Ireland: he introduced a Parliament in Dublin and increased commerce in a few coastal towns, but most of the country was controlled by independent barons or Celtic tribal chieftains. He retained English holdings in France through diplomacy, but was drawn into war by the incursions of Philip IV in Gascony. He negotiated a peace with France in 1303 and retained those areas England held before the war.
Edward's involvement in Scotland had far reaching effects. The country had developed a feudal kingdom similar to England in the Lowlands the Celtic tribal culture dispersed to the Highlands. After the death of the Scottish king, Alexander III, Edward negotiated a treaty whereby Margaret, Maid of Norway and legitimate heir to the Scottish crown, would be brought to England to marry his oldest son, the future Edward II. Margaret, however, died in 1290 en route to England, leaving a disputed succession in Scotland; Edward claimed the right to intercede as feudal lord of the Scottish kings through their Anglo-Norman roots. Edward arbitrated between thirteen different claimants and chose John Baliol. Baliol did homage to Edward as his lord, but the Scots resisted Edward's demands for military service. In 1296, Edward invaded Scotland and soundly defeated the Scots under Baliol Ð Baliol was forced to abdicate and the Scottish barons did homage to Edward as their king. William Wallace incited a rebellion in 1297, defeated the English army at Stirling, and harassed England's northern counties. The next year, Edward defeated Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk but encountered continued resistance until Wallace's capture and execution in 1304. Robert Bruce, the grandson of a claimant to the throne in 1290, instigated another revolt in 1306 and would ultimately defeat the army of Edward II at Bannockburn. Edward's campaigns in Scotland were ruthless and aroused in the Scots a hatred of England that would endure for generations.
Edward's efforts to finance his wars in France and Scotland strained his relationship with the nobility by instituting both income and personal property taxes. Meetings of the King's Great Council, now referred to as Parliaments, intermittently included members of the middle class and began curtailing the royal authority. Parliament reaffirmed Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest in 1297, 1299, 1300, and 1301; it was concluded that no tax should be levied without consent of the realm as a whole (as represented by Parliament).
Edward's character found accurate evaluation by Sir Richard Baker, in A Chronicle of the Kings of England: He had in him the two wisdoms, not often found in any, single; both together, seldom or never: an ability of judgement in himself, and a readiness to hear the judgement of others. He was not easily provoked into passion, but once in passion, not easily appeased, as was seen by his dealing with the Scots; towards whom he showed at first patience, and at last severity. If he be censured for his many taxations, he may be justified by his well bestowing them; for never prince laid out his money to more honour of himself, or good of his kingdom."

Copyright ©2011 Britannia.com, LLC  

Edward I, Longshanks

Submitted by Emma McFarnon Thursday 30th October 2014

Her divorce in 1901 sparked outrage among the royal families of Europe, and her subsequent marriage to her Russian first cousin saw her exiled to Paris and later Finland. Now, Princess Victoria Melita, Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna – better known to her friends as Ducky – is the subject of a new novel exploring her search for love and happiness in a world on the brink of revolution

 

Here, Laurie Graham, the author of The Grand Duchess of Nowhere, tells you everything you need to know about the famous British princess…

Born: 25 November 1876, San Antonio Palace, Valletta, Malta

Died: 2 March 1936, Schloss Amorbach, Bavaria

Family: Ducky was the daughter of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia.  She therefore had two illustrious grandparents: Queen Victoria and Tsar Alexander II.

Famous for: Her prowess as a horsewoman, her scandalous divorce, and her position in the crumbling House of Romanov in 1917.

Life: At the time of Ducky’s birth, her father was serving in the Royal Navy. Her childhood was spent at various naval bases and in a rented house, Eastwell Park, in Kent. She and her siblings also travelled with their mother to her native Russia, where Ducky fell in love with one of her cousins, Cyril Vladimirovich Romanov.

Queen Victoria, always planning advantageous marriages for her grandchildren, thought the Romanovs too foreign for consideration. The husband she chose for Ducky was another cousin, Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse. He and Ducky were married on 19 April 1894.

Ernest was a reluctant bridegroom, and on the day of the wedding, his sister Alix rather stole the couple’s thunder by announcing her own engagement, to Tsesarevich Nicholas, soon to be Tsar Nicholas II. The marriage of her sister-in-law to the next Russian Emperor was to shape much of Ducky’s future life.

Cyril Vladimirovich was aware of Ducky’s feelings for him and reciprocated them, but he held out no hope for their future. He was a serving officer in the Russian Navy, travelling the world. She was married to Ernest, and divorce was unthinkable.

To the amazement of those who knew Ernest’s sexual preferences (it was common knowledge that he was attracted to men), Ducky became pregnant. Their daughter, Elisabeth, was born in March 1895, and Ernie proved to be a besotted father.

Nevertheless, Ducky’s misery and loneliness in the marriage prompted her to beg Grandma Queen for permission to divorce – her plea was denied.

On 22 January 1901, Queen Victoria died. Freed of her grandmother’s iron rule, Ducky left Ernest and demanded a divorce. Cyril, all too aware of the ramifications of marrying a divorced cousin, kept a low profile. Ernie’s sister Alix, now Empress of Russia, was appalled by the divorce and the insinuations about her brother’s sexuality. She became Ducky’s avowed enemy.

In autumn 1903, tragedy struck: Ducky and Ernie’s eight-year-old daughter died of typhoid. Ducky’s grief finally brought Cyril to her side. They were married, quietly and without the tsar’s permission, on 8 October 1905.

Empress Alix’s revenge was swift: Cyril was stripped of his title, expelled from the navy, and banished from Russia.

Ducky and Cyril began their married life in happy exile in Paris. Two daughters were born – Masha in 1907, and Kira in 1909.

In Russia, Tsar Nicholas was beginning to feel isolated. His brother, Grand Duke Michael, had also been banished for marrying a divorcee. Cyril’s father, a pillar of the Romanov family, was dying, and the young tsesarevich, Alexis, was stricken with haemophilia.

Nicholas invited Cyril to return to Russia and bring with him his wife and young family. Overnight Ducky became the Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna.

But time failed to soften Empress Alix’s antipathy to Ducky. Even as civil unrest intensified and the tsar became increasingly beleaguered, the Imperial family kept their distance.

When war broke out August 1914, Ducky formed an ambulance unit and travelled with it to the Polish front.

At the end of 1916, following the murder of the Empress’s controversial favourite, Grigori Rasputin, the Romanov dynasty began to splinter. Some believed Tsar Nicholas could be persuaded to make reforms, while others felt it was a lost cause.

Ducky’s husband was one of the first to declare himself. In March 1917, after a mutiny at the Kronstadt garrison, Cyril broke with the tsar and pledged allegiance to the new government. 

As the Revolution gathered momentum and the prospects of the Romanovs became clear, Cyril and Ducky (40 years old and heavily pregnant with her third child) escaped to Finland. They spent the rest of their lives in exile, principally in France, where Cyril continued to use his imperial title and to plot for the eventual restoration of the Romanov monarchy.

In late January 1936 Ducky was in Germany at a granddaughter’s christening when she suffered a stroke. She died just over four weeks later, and was buried in her family vault in Coburg. Cyril survived her by less than three years.

The torch of restoration passed to their son, Vladimir, born in exile in Finland, and is still carried today by his daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna.

In profile: the British princess who scandalised the royal family | History Extra

By Steve Myall Nov 05, 2014 09:25

On November 5, 1605, Guy was foiled as he plotted to destroy the Houses of Parliament during the state opening and kill all inside it, including the King

 

He's world famous thanks to his distinctive moustached face which has been adopted as a mask by anti capitalists but Guy Fawkes is best known for failing to blow up Westminster Palace.

On November 5, 1605, Guy was foiled as he plotted to destroy the Houses of Parliament during state opening and kill all inside it including the King in what became known as the Gunpowder Plot.

But aside from that what do we know about the conspirator who was just 35 when he died.

He was born on April 13th 1570 in Stonegate in York, and was educated at St. Peter's School in York, preferring to be called Guido Fawkes.

As a boy he lived near York with his father Edward and his mother Edith.

Failed: The Gunpowder Plot conspirators. Getty

His father was a Protestant and worked as a solicitor for the religious court of the church however in 1579 he died and three years later his mother remarried a man called Denis Bainbridge, a Catholic and so the young Guy converted.

Converting to Catholicism which in those days was a big deal as the ruling religion was led by Church of England which would not tolerate Roman Catholicism.

It was incredibly hard to worship so devotees were driven underground and it was from that oppression the plot sprung.

There have been rumours that Guy met and married Maria Pulleyn in 1590 – but there are no parish records to show this which has led it being open to dispute.

Relic: A lantern belonging to Guy Fawkes. Getty

So fervent were Guy's religious beliefs that he first choose to leave Protestant England and enlist in the Spanish army in Holland in the Eighty Years War.

There he won a reputation for great courage and cool determination and this is where he gained experience with explosives, and also where he decided to call himself Guido, probably because it sounded Spanish.

In 1604 at Ostend, Guy met another Englishman called Thomas Winter, who had also been in Spain trying to drum up support for English Catholics.

As the two travelled back to London Thomas told Guy that he and his friends including Yorkshiremen John and Christopher Wright, from Welwick, and Robert Catesby, were going to take action but needed the help of a military man who would not be recognised by the authorities.

Caught: The arrest of Guy Fawkes in the cellars of Parliament. Rex

Guy was not the mastermind behind the plot despite his subsequent fame – that was Warwickshire born Robert Catesby, the son of a persecuted Roman Catholic.

Catesby, a wealthy man, knew most of his co-conspirators through a network of friendships with various Roman Catholic families.

The exception was Guy, who he likely to have met when he was briefly employed as a footman by Anthony Browne, 2nd Lord Montague, a family which Catesby's sister had married into.

October 18, 1605 is a crucial date with regards to the conspiracy as it is when the conspirators discussed how Catholic peers might be spared from the planned explosion.

 

Crime and punishment: The execution of Guy Fawkes and associates. Getty

This led to the famed ‘Monteagle Letter’ written on October 26 to catholic MP William Parker, the 4th Baron Monteagle warning him not to come near Westminster.

In order to get close enough to their targets a cellar below the Houses of Parliament was rented by the members of the plot which was filled with 36 barrels of gunpowder.

There was enough to completely destroy the building and damage buildings within a one mile radius of it.

The plot was undone when the anonymous letter was sent to the Baron of Monteagle, warning him not to go to the House of Lords was made public.

Famed: Guy Fawkes. Getty

This led to a search of Westminster Palace being ordered and in the early hours of November 5, Guy was discovered guarding the explosives.

Initially he pretended to be a servant and said the wood belonged to his master Thomas Percy but when this was reported to the King, and the fact that Percy was a Catholic, the King ordered a second search, the gunpowder was found and Guy arrested.

During his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, Fawkes called himself John Johnson and when he was arrested and asked to give his name, this is the name he gave.

Shortly after being found early in the morning of November 5, the Privy Council met in the King's bedchamber, and Fawkes was brought in under guard and asked explain why he wanted to kill him and blow up Parliament.

 

Tradition: The Yeoman of the Guard prepares to carry out a search of the vaults below Westminster. Rex

He answered that he regarded the King as a disease since he had been excommunicated by the Pope.

Asked why he he needed such a huge quantity of gunpowder, he apparently said: "To blow you Scotch beggars back to your own native mountains!"

Guy was sent to the Tower of London King James indicated in a letter of 6 November that "The gentler tortours are to be first used unto him, and so by degrees proceeding to the worst, and so God speed your goode worke"

And over the next four days, he was questioned and tortured on the “rack” and eventually confessed and gave the names of his conspirators.

His signature on the written confession after torture, which is still held by the National Archives, was very faint and weak, and another taken a few days later was much bolder indicating how weakened he must have been by torture.

Heritage: Bonfire Night celebrations in Lewes. Getty

Fawkes and others involved were tried on January 31st 1606 and then hung, drawn and quartered in the Old Palace Yard in Westminster.

The Attorney General Sir Edward Coke told the court that each of the condemned would be drawn backwards to his death, by a horse, his head near the ground.

They were to be "put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both".

Their genitals would be cut off and burnt before their eyes, and their bowels and hearts removed.

They would then be decapitated, and the dismembered parts of their bodies displayed so that they might become "prey for the fowls of the air".

 

But Guy had the last laugh as immediately before his execution on January 31, he jumped from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the mutilation.

He also did not have his body parts distributed to "the four corners of the kingdom", to be displayed as a warning to other would-be traitors.

Despite being involved in what is basically a terrorist plot, Guy Fawkes was named the 30th Greatest Briton in a poll conducted by the BBC in 2002.

 

Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night

Today the word "guy" is used to refer to a man but originally it was a term for an "ugly, repulsive person" in reference to Fawkes.

Straw effigies made of Guy Fawkes and thrown onto bonfires to remember the Gunpowder Plot were also known as "guys" and over time the meaning has blurred.

Following the thwarting of the plot Londoners were encouraged to celebrate the King's escape from assassination by lighting bonfires and this tradition continues today.

Bonfire night and Guy Fawkes story explained - gunpowder, treason and plot - Mirror Online