SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a cargo ship that sank suddenly during a gale storm on November 10, 1975, while on Lake Superior. The ship went down without a distress signal in 530 feet (162 m) of water at 46°59.9′N 85°6.6′W, in Canadian waters about 17 miles (15 nm; 27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew perished. Gordon Lightfoot‘s hit song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, helped make the incident the most famous marine disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping.
On November 10, 1969, “Sesame Street,” a pioneering TV show that would teach generations of young children the alphabet and how to count, makes its broadcast debut. “Sesame Street,” with its memorable theme song (“Can you tell me how to get/How to get to Sesame Street”), went on to become the most widely viewed children’s program in the world. It has aired in more than 120 countries.
Starting in 1999, CP runs a Holiday Train along its main line during the months of November and December. The Holiday Train celebrates the holiday season and collects donations for community food banks and hunger issues. The Holiday Train also provides publicity for CP and a few of its customers. Each train has a box car stage for entertainers who are travelling along with the train.
The train is a freight train, but also pulls vintage passenger cars which are used as lodging/transportation for the crew and entertainers. Only entertainers and CP employees are allowed to board the train aside from a coach car that takes employees and their families from one stop to the next. All donations collected in a community remain in that community for distribution.
There are two Holiday Trains that cover 150 stops in Canada and the United States Northeast and Midwest. Each train is roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) in length with brightly decorated railway cars, including a modified box car that has been turned into a travelling stage for performers. They are each decorated with hundred of thousands of LED Christmas lights. In 2013 to celebrate the program’s 15th year, three signature events were held in Hamilton, Ontario, Calgary, Alberta, and Cottage Grove, Minnesota, to further raise awareness for hunger issues.
The 2024 CPKC Holiday Train will tour Canada and the U.S. Nov. 21 through Dec. 20, raising money, food and awareness to support food banks across our network. Professional musicians play free concerts from the brightly decorated train’s stage. CPKC donates to the local food bank at each stop and encourages all attendees to make a monetary or heart-healthy food donation.
Since its inaugural journey in 1999, the CPKC Holiday Train has raised more than $24.3 million and collected approximately 5.3 million pounds of food for community food banks in Canada and the U.S.
In 1886, the ticker-tape parade is invented in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticket tape into the streets as the Statue of Liberty is dedicated.
In 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ’29 or Black Tuesday, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.
In 1960, in Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
In 1969, the first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
In 1998, Space Shuttle Discovery blasts-off with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space. He became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962.
