On this day, a tiny town in Canada opened up its hearts — and its homes — to 7,000 stranded passengers in a desperate time of need.
They didn’t care about politics, or who the President was. They did it because it's what Canadians do best.
A Goodable 🧵
On the east coast of North America, there's a Canadian province called Newfoundland. It’s filled with cold winters, warm summers, and even warmer hearts.
The province has a small town called Gander. In the 1940s, its airport used to be one of the biggest in the world.
On September 11, 2001, it started out as a normal day.
People dropped off their kids, went to work, chatted with friends. The kind of things that happen everyday in small towns across Canada.
During the US Civil War, he taught himself to read, stole a confederate ship, sailed to freedom, rescued other slaves, bought his former master’s house, then got elected to Congress.
Yet most people have never heard of him.
A 🧵
Smalls was born on a plantation in South Carolina and grew up working on the docks.
When the war erupted, the confederate army forced him to work on a steamship transporting confederate troops and weapons.
But Smalls had other plans.
One night, he asked the captain if he could bring his family to show them the ship.
After the soldiers left, he brought his family on board, hid them, and sailed the ship into confederate patrolled waters.