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Our Adorable Past

Sarah Vowell Tells Us About the True Meaning of the Day After Thanksgiving [Video]

by Jamie Frevele | 5:58 pm, November 25th, 2011


Sarah Vowell, history geek humorist extraordinaire (and the voice of Violet Incredible), has a very important lesson on history that we have probably never really acknowledged in our lifetimes. As she described on The Daily Show — as its newly minted Senior Historical Context Correspondent — November 25 is Evacuation Day, the day that British troops finally left New York after the end of the Revolutionary War after imprisoning American POWs in prison ships where many, many, many of them died and/or ate maggots to survive. But the good news is that, as we all know, the British finally left in 1783, years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and those surviving prisoners were freed! Some of us will be taking advantage of sales this Black Friday. But some of us will be celebrating history by not eating maggots.

(via Time)

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  • Carmen Sandiego

    Fascinating.  I actually never knew any of that.  I’m assuming that this is legit history and not just something she made up for the bit?

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