Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 24th.  The sun will rise at 7:50.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 16 minutes, setting at 5:07.   The moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 8:22 tomorrow morning.

We get the celebration of Thanksgiving from the Pilgrims who celebrated their first harvest, but at the wrong place.  They were originally heading for the mouth of the Hudson River, which was considered North Virginia in back then.  Navigation in those days was rather imprecise.  Latitude was easy to determine at night or at noon but only if it was clear.  Longitude was a guess.  Generally in the age of sail sailors picked a latitude where the winds blew in the right direction to take them to the Americas, then would sail north or south to the latitude they wanted to go.  Storms pushed the Mayflower off course and the Pilgrims ended up near Cape Cod several hundred miles north of their target, an easy mistake to make back then.  Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.