April 6 - National Tartan Day in the U.S.A.

 Posted on April 6, 2022

This is an update of my post published on April 6, 2011:






Today is a day to honor your Scottish ancestors—if you've got 'em!

Why April 6? The date goes back a loooong time, to April 6, 1320, when the “Scottish Declaration of Independence” was signed by Scottish nobility in Arbroath Abbey.


Why “tartan”? Tartan is a plaid pattern of criss-crossing horizontal and vertical stripes in various colors. Scottish kilts almost always have a tartan pattern. The pattern is not called “plaid” in Scotland; a plaid is a tartan cloth worn slung over the shoulder, or a tartan blanket. 

Different tartan patterns, with distinctive colors, used to be associated with the region of Scotland in which it was made, but since the mid-1800s, the different tartans came to be associated with different clans (families).


Wallace




Buchanan



There are a variety of tartans associated with some families.
Here are 8 different tartans for the MacDonalds!

Find out more about Tartan Day here.

Try making your own tartan.

Some celebrations of Tartan Day might include playing bagpipes, doing Scottish dances, holding parades, or putting on Scottish games. Have fun!








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April 5 - Qingming Festival in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong

 Posted on April 5, 2022

This is an update of my post published on April 5, 2011:




Today's holiday is sometimes called Ching Ming, Clear Bright Festival, Ancestors' Day, or Tomb-Sweeping Day. 

It is a festival that has been celebrated for more than 2,500 years—although Communist China repealed the holiday from 1949 to 2008. Families honor their ancestors at grave sites, praying, sweeping the tombs, and making offerings of food, drinks, chopsticks, or other items. Some families also enact rituals or burn “spirit money” and drawings of cars, homes, phones, and servants; these paper versions of things people believe will be needed in the afterlife are delivered to the dead ancestors by being burned.




Nowadays, some families fly kites on this festival day.



How do you and your family honor ancestors? You, too, could go to a graveyard to tend the graves of departed family members, and you could look at old photos and remember anecdotes about grandparents or great-grandparents or...


Some families don't know much about their history—so consider doing some research on genealogy to find out more.

Of course, genealogical research is easier for some folks than for others. If your ancestors were enslaved or conquered - if they were refugees fleeing from a war or victims of a natural disaster - it's possible that you won't be able to find records after a certain point. To know a bit about your ancestry from farther back, if you find yourself in this situation, you could consider doing a DNA test. 





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April 4 - Francis Drake Becomes *Sir* Francis Drake!

 Posted on April 4, 2022

This is an update of my post published on April 4, 2011:




On this date in 1581, Francis Drake was knighted on board his ship, the Golden Hind, by Queen Elizabeth I. He was then called "Sir Francis Drake."


A year earlier, he was just "Francis Drake," an English sea captain who had become the first expedition leader to travel all the way around the world. (Ferdinand Magellan is famous for being the first to circle the globe, in 1522, but although some of the ships and men in his expedition did succeed in the task, he died in the Philippines.)



Seven years after being knighted, Sir Francis Drake helped save the British navy from the Spanish Armada.


Sir Francis Drake was a hero—that is, to the English people he was a hero. He can also be described as a ruthless, thieving pirate and a slave trader. He was such an enemy of Spain that King Philip II offered the equivalent of six and a half MILLION (U.S.) dollars as a reward for his capture or death.

Explore some more here. Remember, the view is likely to be slanted pro-Drake if it is written from a British point of view!

See a photo gallery of Drake's replicated ship the Golden Hind here.


 
Did you know...?

We know that, during Drake's trip around the world, he landed somewhere in Northern California—probably in what we now call Drake's Bay, near Point Reyes. In 1936, a brass plate claiming “this kingdome” for “Herr Maiesty Qveen Elizabeth of England” came to the attention of the world. Historians immediately doubted whether this plate was real—the wording, spelling, and manufacture of the plate seemed doubtful to experts. However, when one study concluded it was real, many people assumed that it was a genuine sixteenth century artifact. This conclusion was believed for about forty years.



However, in the 1970s the plate was looked at again. Scientists ran tests and concluded that it was a modern creation—and therefore a hoax—and historians came up with a theory as to who made the fake plate, and why: It was apparently created for a prank that several Californian historians meant to play on a member of their historian society—meant to be kept private, meant to be revealed as a prank almost immediately. A series of unfortunate events conspired to spin the prank out of the pranksters' control!

I spotted this fun amateur video about two kids searching for the Drake's Plate. Check it out! 




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