Author: Colin Gorenstein

Humans have long been interested in developing space colonies, and lately, that’s starting to actually look possible. Silicon Valley giant Elon Musk is one of many tech-industry executives interested in making the leap to other planets.

“History is going to bifurcate along two directions,” Musk said in his recent SpaceX speech about the company’s plans to send crewed missions to Mars. “One path is we stay on Earth forever, and eventually there will some extinction event. The alternative is to become a space-faring civilization and a multi-planet species.”

Whether humanity’s time on Earth is limited by our own bad choices or natural destruction, Musk plans to get to Mars within the next few decades: He optimistically envisions tourists heading to the red planet in the next 20 years, and building a city there with a population of a million by the 2060s.

This may sound great for humans, but what about the Martians?

THE SEARCH FOR LIFE ON MARS

The word Martians summons mental images of H.G. Wells’s gloppy octopi or Bradbury’s golden-skinned humanoids, but the most likely potential life on Mars is microorganisms. While we haven’t yet found any life on Mars, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter did find evidence of liquid water there, one of the most basic requirements for life. And while conditions on the red planet are incredibly harsh, there are similar places on Earth—inside super-hot geysers, deep in ocean vents, and under frozen-solid ice caps—where life has been found in recent years.

“[Microorganisms] are known to thrive in any biotope on Earth, no matter how ‘extreme’ the biotope is. They can withstand high doses of radiation, desiccation, and survive extended periods of starvation,” Alex Probst, a microbiologist at University of California, Berkeley, tells mental_floss. Probst has worked with NASA for almost a decade.

Though Mars may be pretty inhospitable (it has about 17 identified biocidal factors [PDF], which are destructive to life), its environment isn’t uniform; in fact NASA has already designated some parts of the planet as “special regions” which are, according to a paper in the journal Acta Astronautica, “areas that may support Earth microbes inadvertently introduced to Mars, or that may have a high probability of supporting indigenous Martian life.”

NASA already knows that given the opportunity, microscopic Earth life could thrive on Mars: “We test Earth microbes for growth in simulated conditions … there are many Earth microbes that can grow in Mars surface conditions, if protected from UV light (sunburn) and they have enough water and nutrients,” Catharine Conley, the Planetary Protection Officer for NASA, tells mental_floss.

If microorganisms were to be found in one of these special regions, or anywhere on Mars, it would be a huge deal. But the very possibility raises the important issue of keeping Earthling hitchhikers out. We know how problematic (and in some cases, disastrous) invasive species on Earth have been: What would happen to life on Mars if it’s overwhelmed or outcompeted by microbes from Earth before we even have a chance to study it?

PLANS TO SAFEGUARD MARTIAN LIFE …

These are serious enough considerations that NASA has a department dedicated to the issue of contamination, and developing protocols to deal with it. Known as The Office of Planetary Protection (OPP), the headquarters has a whole set of policies for vehicles headed to Mars, including definitions for levels of protection. For example, landers and probes going to Mars but not returning to Earth are category IV, which means they are completely decontaminated before they head out into space. The Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2014, was assigned a level IV designation: It was assembled in a clean room, and parts that could be baked at high temperatures were. Missions that will travel to the “special regions” are classified at level IV(a-c), even higher levels of caution. Mars missions where equipment will need to be decontaminated before returning to Earth to prevent bringing anything alien home are categorized at the highest level: V, which so far is theoretical. 

All this caution isn’t just to protect creatures only microbiologists could get excited about. “Mars is an environment to which Earth organisms have never been exposed, over the entire known course of our evolution,” says Conley. “Anything that we find out about [these Martian organisms] will tell us about ourselves, and what are the possibilities for living elsewhere,” says Conley. The value of Martian life is hard to nail down, but NASA takes the tack that it’s a good idea to minimize our impact so that we can find out. “The focus of planetary protection is to make sure …the next robotic mission to Mars doesn’t bring something along that might cause problems later,” says Conley.

The scale of Musk’s humans-on-Mars plan is such that some think contamination of the red planet is inevitable. “We have more microbial cells on our body than human cells, so if we go to Mars, so will microbes. And they will spread easily and fast just like on Earth,” says Probst.

… AND LIFE ON EARTH

But like colonizers past, Musk and SpaceX don’t seem concerned about their impact on the places they’re exploring; as Musk said on The Late Show With Steven Colbert in 2015, he’d nuke the red planet’s poles to make it warmer and begin terraforming Mars to make it more habitable for humans.

Moreover, if Musk’s plans succeed, there’s also Earth to worry about. Musk insists that going to Mars shouldn’t have to be a one-way journey, which begs another question: Is there any danger to Earth from the potential life on Mars? Under NASA’s current rules, all of the rocket launchers, fuel tankers, and ships people would travel in would need to be decontaminated before returning to Earth. “We don’t know anything about Mars organisms. If they’re related to us, then we could exchange DNA with unpredictable consequences; and whether or not they’re related to us, they might find parts of the Earth really pleasant to invade,” says Conley.

As private exploration of the solar system expands, these are important questions to keep in mind. NASA’s approach is fundamentally different from Musk’s: “We are committed to exploration of the solar system in a way that protects explored environments as they exist in their natural state,” the agency wrote in a statement following Musk’s statements on Colbert. Considering that SpaceX and NASA will be working together to get us to Mars, we’ll see in coming years whose ideas prevail.

Maybe our biggest lesson from Mars exploration will be understanding how our own planet is “amazingly hospitable,” says Probst. He hopes that in light of Mars’ challenges, “our current life style of consuming all resources on this planet will hopefully change.”

The Simpsons recently cemented its title as America’s longest-running primetime scripted series with the announcement of seasons 29 and 30. For a time, Baywatch was the world’s most syndicated program, sold to 148 countries and a weekly global audience of over a billion people. And in 1983, up to 125 million people (an unprecedented 77 percent audience share) watched “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” the last ever episode of M*A*S*H. But when it comes to the single most repeated program in history, that title is claimed by none of television’s biggest names, but by an obscure British comedy sketch, filmed in 1963 with a cast of two, that has gained a cult audience all over the world.

The two stars in question were British comedian Freddie Frinton and 72-year-old actress May Warden. Frinton first made a name for himself in the music halls and variety shows of wartime Britain, and after World War II added a sketch to his show entitled “Dinner For One.”

In the sketch he plays James, a butler, employed by Miss Sophie, played by Warden, an upper class woman who is celebrating her 90th birthday with a fine banquet. Sadly, Miss Sophie has long outlived her four closest friends—Sir Toby, Admiral von Schneider, Mr. Pommeroy and Mr. Winterbottom—but places are set at her dinner table regardless, with James valiantly stepping in to impersonate each one.

As each of the four courses are served—with Miss Sophie explaining each time that the pair will follow the “same procedure as every year” —James tops up the four missing guests’ glasses, toasts Miss Sophie’s health, and downs them all. And needless to say, by the end of the meal (and after four glasses of sherry, four glasses of white wine, four glasses of champagne, and four glasses of port) James is slightly the worse for wear. At the end of the sketch, as they’re going up to Miss Sophie’s bedroom, James asks, “Same procedure as last year?” and Miss Sophie replies, “Same procedure as every year.” James responds, “Well, I’ll do my very best,”—a very risqué move at the time.

“Dinner For One” was originally written in the 1920s by English author and scriptwriter Lauri Wylie, but it proved so popular with his audiences that Frinton eventually bought the rights to it and continued to perform it as part of his show for the next seven years. Then, during a tour of English seaside resorts in 1962, a German entertainer and television star named Peter Frankenfeld happened to see Frinton and Warden performing the sketch in Blackpool and asked if they would like to reproduce it as part of his TV show, Guten Abend. The following year, the pair travelled to Germany and filmed it in English—though under the German title “Der 90 Geburtstag,” or “The 90th Birthday”— in front of a live studio audience; by then, the pair were so used to the material that it took just one take to get a flawless recording.

But how did such an unassuming sketch become the Guinness World Records’ most repeated TV show ever?

Well, besides proving immediately popular with Frankenfeld’s audience, part of the skit’s success lies in Frinton’s expert physical comedy (which needs no subtitles and so works across the language boundary) and partly in its short running time, which for many years made it the perfect short to fill time between broadcasts. After being used sporadically as little more than a time-filler over the next decade, in 1972, German television network Norddeutscher Rundfunk decided to schedule it at 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. The viewers loved it, and a now annual tradition was established.

“Dinner For One” has been shown every New Year’s Eve in Germany since, and has established itself as such a traditional part of the country’s New Year celebrations that Miss Sophie’s catchphrase is now familiar to practically all native German speakers: In 1996, an opposition finance minister even accused his opponent of adopting “the same procedure as every year” in the German parliament.

More recently, others countries have gotten in on the tradition, and “Dinner For One” has now established itself as a New Year’s tradition in the likes of Denmark, Austria, and Sweden; as a pre-Christmas tradition in Norway, where it’s broadcast annually on December 23; and has amassed a cult following in countries as far afield as Estonia and South Africa. “Dinner For One” has since racked up more than 200 individual broadcasts (it was reportedly shown 19 times on different German networks on New Year’s Eve 2003 alone), easily taking the title as the world’s most-repeated television program. Although ironically, for such a quintessentially British sketch, it has yet to be shown in its entirety on British television …

Composers have long pushed the boundaries of classical music by writing parts for new and innovative instruments—but not all of them have ended up a permanent fixture in the orchestra …

1. SARRUSOPHONE

The sarrusophone (above) was invented in 1856 and named in honor of the French military bandleader Pierre-Auguste Sarrus. It was originally developed as a replacement for relatively quieter woodwind instruments in military bands: its rich, deep, saxophone-like tone was stronger and better suited to outdoor performances than that of smaller woodwind instruments, like the oboe.

Although never a particularly widely used instrument, the sarrusophone enjoyed a burst of popularity in the early 1900s when a number of big-name composers—including Maurice Ravel, Frederick Delius and Igor Stravinsky—wrote parts for it in a number of their compositions. But probably the most famous work to include a sarrusophone part is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by the French composer Paul Dukas, which was famously put to use in the 1940 Disney movie, Fantasia. Nowadays, however, the unfamiliarity and unpopularity of sarrusophones means that these parts are more often than not taken by the contrabasson.

2. GLASS ARMONICA

Invented by Benjamin Franklin, the glass armonica (or “harmonica”) comprises a revolving set of glass cups or rings which produce a shimmering sound when played with dampened fingers. Despite its relative obscurity, plenty of classical composers—among them several major names, including Mozart and Beethoven—have written works for the glass harmonica, although it seldom appears in larger ensemble or orchestral settings. One well known exception is Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals: in the Carnival’s famous Aquarium movement, an echo of the flute melody is played one beat later on the glass harmonica.

3. HECKELPHONE

The heckelphone is essentially a cross between a bassoon and an oboe that was invented by the German instrument maker Wilhelm Heckel—apparently at the request of Richard Wagner—in the late 19th century, although it didn’t make its first appearance in classical music repertoire until the early 1900s.

In compositions of the time, the heckelphone was often listed under the title of “bass oboe,” but that designation was also given to the similar hautbois baryton, another deep-pitched woodwind instrument, making it all but impossible to tell which instrument the composers in question wanted: Gustav Holst’s famous Planets suite, for instance, includes a part for a bass oboe, but it’s unclear whether he had the heckelphone in mind or not. One composer who made his intentions clear, however, was Richard Strauss, who singled out the heckelphone in the score for his enormous Alpine Symphony in 1915.

4. THEREMIN

Invented by Leon Theremin in the early 1920s, this bizarre electronic instrument is probably best known to modern audiences for providing the spooky, high-pitched droning sound used in classic sci-fi movie soundtracks like Bernard Herrmann’s The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). But several more composers of the early-to-mid 20th century wrote parts for the theremin in their orchestral works, including composer and musical theorist Joseph Schillinger: his First Airphonic Suite (1929) made superb use of the theremin’s curious sound alongside a full symphony orchestra. Here is a video of a theremin being played by a cat.

5. WAGNER TUBA

It’s not strictly speaking a tuba, but it was at least invented at the request of Richard Wagner: Wagner tubas or Wagnertuben first became popular in the mid-19th century and were first used by Wagner in his score for Das Rheingold (1854) as a richly-toned instrument intended to fill the tonal space between the tuba, the trombone and the French horn. Since then, Wagner tubas have been used (albeit relatively infrequently) by a number of famous composers, including Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, and Béla Bartók.

6. PREPARED PIANO

Classical composers have been writing piano concertos since the late Romantic period; Mozart wrote his first piano concerto in the mid-1760s when he was just 11 years old (largely based on others’ works). Since then, the piano concerto has become one of the most popular of all orchestral arrangements, with Beethoven’s Emperor (1811) and Edward Grieg’s Concerto in A minor (1868) being among the most famous and most frequently performed.

Maverick American composer John Cage, of course, had to go one better by writing a concerto for prepared piano—namely, a piano with everything from drawing pins and rubber bands to corks, forks and cotton balls inserted among the strings and hammers to give the instrument a bizarre range of percussive sounds and tones. Written for piano and chamber orchestra, the concerto premiered in New York in 1952.

7. CANNON

Admittedly, a cannon can hardly be classed as a musical instrument—but that didn’t stop Tchaikovsky from writing “a battery of cannons” into the score of his monumental 1812 Overture in 1882. Although actual cannon fire is sometimes used in larger (and, for obvious reasons, outdoor) performances of the 1812, typically most modern performances replace the cannons with audio recordings or theatrical sound effects, or else hand the 16 cannon blasts the score requires over to a similarly loud percussion instrument, like a bass drum or timpani. No matter how it’s handled, however, the effect is a rousing conclusion to a piece of music Tchaikovsky himself dismissed as “very loud and noisy.”

It’s fair to say that some word origins are pretty straightforward—straightforward being a fine example of that. Then there are those word origins that are so obscure, the word in question offers few clues to its history. Tragedy, for instance, might come from the Greek for “goat song” (perhaps a reference to actors in Ancient Greek tragedies dressing in animal furs, or maybe because a goat was once offered as a prize). A glass of punch takes its name from the Hindi word for five (because the original recipe for punch had just five ingredients: water, liquor, lemon juice, sugar, and spices—although the Oxford English Dictionary says that the original recipe was milk, curd, ghee, honey, and molasses). And the less said about avocados and orchids the better, frankly.

But then there are those word origins that are hiding in plain sight: words whose origins, after a just little consideration, seem obvious once you know them.

1. SECRETARY

The original secretaries were officers or aides working in the courts of European monarchs, a sense of the word that still survives in the titles of positions like “secretary of state.” As close associates of the king or queen, these secretaries were often privy to a lot of private information—which made a secretary literally a keeper of secrets.

2. PANDEMONIUM

You might well know that this word was coined by the poet John Milton, who used it as the name of the capital of Hell in Paradise Lost in 1667. And you might also have figured out that the pan– here is the same as in words like pandemic and panorama, and literally means “all” or “every.” Put together, that makes pandemonium literally “a place of all demons.”

3. PREPOSTEROUS

Preposterous is one of a handful of so-called oxymoronic words in the English language, whose roots combine elements that contradict one another. A pianoforte, for instance, literally produces a “soft-loud” sound. And the contradiction is even more obvious in words like bittersweet, bridegroom, and speechwriting. The preposterous meaning of preposterous derives from the fact that it brings together the prefixes pre–, meaning “before,” and post–, meaning “after”—and so literally describes something that is back to front or in the incorrect order.

4. BREAKFAST

That meal you have first thing in the morning? It would have originally “broken” the previous night’s “fast.”

5. MONTH

The months of the year were originally calculated from the phases of the moon, and ultimately a month is essentially a “moon-th.” Another Moon-related word that’s staring you in the face is lunatic: originally an adjective, describing someone whose behavior was affected by the phases of the moon.

6. NAUSEA

The first few letters of words like nausea and nauseated are closely related to maritime words like nautical and nautilus. That’s because nausea was once specifically used to mean “seasickness,” and in fact derives from the Greek word for a ship. Moreover …

7. ASTRONAUT

… the astro– of astronaut is related to the root of words like asterisk and asteroid, while the –naut comes from the same seafaring root as nausea. Put them together, and an astronaut is literally a “star-sailor.” Likewise …

8. DISASTER

… a disaster is literally an ill-starred event: a catastrophe blamed on an ill-fated astrological misalignment of the stars and planets.

9. DISAPPOINT

It stands to reason that if you can appoint someone, then you can disappoint them; in fact, the word originally meant (and literally means) “to remove someone from office.” The current sense of “to let down” or “to fail” developed in the late 15th century from the earlier use of disappoint to mean “to frustrate someone’s plans” or “to renege on an engagement.”

10. FREELANCE

Yes, the “lance” in freelance is the same one carried by a medieval knight, at least in early 19th century fiction. That’s because the original freelancers were mercenary knights in stories like Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe—characters who carried no allegiance to any specific cause, and could instead be paid or hired to fight.

11. EQUINOX

The equinox is the date at which the Sun passes the Earth’s celestial equator, on which night and day are exactly equal; appropriately enough, the word itself literally means “equal night.”

12. BLOCKBUSTER

The original blockbusters were enormous bombs developed by Britain’s Royal Air Force for use in raids on German targets during the Second World War. To the RAF, they were officially known as HC, or “high-capacity” bombs. To the pilots involved in the raids, they were known by the unassuming nickname “cookies.” But to the press, these enormous bombs (the largest of which weighed 12,000 pounds and contained 8400 pounds of explosive Amatex [PDF]) were nicknamed blockbusters—bombs powerful enough to destroy an entire block of buildings. After the War, the military use of the word fell out of use so that only a figurative meaning, describing anything, from films to political speeches, that had a similarly impressive impact, remained in use.

13. MALARIA

Mal– essentially means “bad,” as it does in words like malfunction and malpractice, while aria is the Italian word for “air.” Ultimately malaria was so called because it was once said to be caused by the stagnant air and choking fumes the emanated from areas of marshland or swamp, rather than the infected mosquitos that inhabited them.

14. JOURNEY

Once you remember that jour is the French word for “day,” it’s easy to figure out that a journey is literally a day’s traveling—while a sojourn is literally a one-day stay; you write up a day’s events in your journal; and you can read accounts of the day’s events in journalism.

The greatest speech in American history had a tough act to follow.

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered an address at the dedication of a new National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. As the president offered some brief remarks before a war-weary crowd of around 15,000 people, he modestly said, “the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.”

Lincoln was only half right about that. Despite his humble prediction, the president’s Gettysburg Address has shown remarkable staying power over the past 153 years. The unifying oration has been engraved onto monuments, memorized by countless schoolchildren, and painstakingly dissected by every Civil War historian under the sun. It’s even achieved international fame: Across the Atlantic, language from the speech was woven into the current constitution of France.

But at that gathering in Gettysburg, President Lincoln wasn’t the primary speaker. His immortal words were merely the follow-up to another speech—one that was meticulously researched and, at least by some accounts, brilliantly delivered. It was a professional triumph for a scholar and statesman named Edward Everett who had been hailed as the finest orator in America. Yet history has all but forgotten it.

DISTINGUISHED IN ACADEMIA—AND POLITICS

Everett was born in Massachusetts on April 11, 1794, and he was exceptional even as a young man. The son of a minister, Everett was admitted to Harvard University at 13 and graduated at 17. After studying to be a minister himself, and briefly serving as one, Everett’s alma mater offered him a spot on its faculty. The position allowed time abroad in Europe, and Everett spent some of those years studying at the University of Göttingen in modern Germany, where he became the first American to earn a Ph.D. (U.S. schools didn’t offer that type of degree at the time). When he returned from Europe, Everett took up his post at Harvard.

For many people, landing a spot on Harvard’s payroll would be the achievement of a lifetime. But after Everett started teaching in 1819, he quickly found himself longing for a career change. In 1825, he ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Elected as a conservative Whig, he served for a full decade before setting his sights on state politics. In 1835, Everett won the first of four one-year terms as the governor of Massachusetts. As governor, he revolutionized New England schools by spearheading the establishment of his state’s first board of education.

Like most politicians, Everett suffered his fair share of defeats. Due largely to his support of a controversial measure that limited alcohol sales, he was voted out of the governor’s mansion in 1839 (he lost by just one vote). But he soon got another shot at public service: In 1841, the John Tyler administration appointed Everett as the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, a job that enabled him to play a major role in settling a Maine-New Brunswick border dispute that had created a great deal of tension between the two countries.

Academia beckoned once again in 1846, when Everett—after some coaxing—agreed to become the president of Harvard. Following his resignation in 1849, President Millard Fillmore appointed him Secretary of State. Everett subsequently bolstered his political resume with a one-year tenure in the U.S. Senate, resigning in 1854 after failing health caused him to miss a vote on the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

In the election of 1860, Everett found himself pitted against future president Abraham Lincoln. Without Everett’s consent, the Constitutional Union Party—which favored ignoring the slavery issue to prevent a civil war—nominated him as its vice presidential candidate. The ex-Governor reluctantly accepted the nomination, believing that doing otherwise would cause too much damage to the ticket—but he flatly refused to campaign. Privately, he believed that the party had no chance, writing to a friend that June that his nomination was “of no great consequence; a mere ripple on the great wave of affairs.”

“A VOICE OF SUCH RICH TONES, SUCH PRECISE AND PERFECT UTTERANCE”

Something that was of great consequence, however, was Everett’s growing reputation as a first-rate public speaker. He’d taught Ralph Waldo Emerson at Harvard; in the budding philosopher’s words, Everett had “a voice of such rich tones, such precise and perfect utterance, that, although slightly nasal, it was the most mellow and beautiful, and correct of all the instruments of the time.” Everett’s other celebrity fans included Thomas Jefferson, who praised a speech that Everett gave at Harvard on behalf of the visiting Marquis de Lafayette.

The American people grew well-acquainted with Everett’s oratory skills after he left the Senate. Once the war broke out, he started touring the northern states, making pro-Union speeches wherever he went. So when a Pennsylvania-led commission finished assembling a burial ground for the soldiers who’d fallen at Gettysburg, they naturally asked Edward Everett if he’d speak at the cemetery’s formal dedication in October 1863.

Everett received their official invite on September 23. His response was an enthusiastic yes, although he did request that the consecration date be pushed back to November 19 so he’d have time to research and gather his thoughts. The request was granted, and Everett got to work.

He began by going over every available account of the battle. From Union general George G. Meade’s staff, Everett received an official report on what had transpired. And when Robert E. Lee submitted his own account to the Richmond Inquirer, Everett went through it with a fine-toothed comb.

By November 11, Everett’s speech had begun to take shape. As a courtesy, he submitted an advance copy to another man who’d been asked to say a few words at Gettysburg: President Lincoln. The plan all along was for Everett to deliver a lengthy oration which would be followed by what one pamphlet described as “a few dedicatory remarks by the President of the United States.” Nobody expected the Commander-in-Chief to turn many heads with his brief comments. It was to be Everett’s show; Lincoln was an afterthought.

Everett traveled to Gettysburg on November 16, still constantly revising his notes. Since a large chunk of his speech would be dedicated to recounting the historic battle, he decided to familiarize himself with the terrain on which it was fought. Professor Michael Jacobs of Gettysburg College, an eyewitness to the battle, guided Everett through the hills and fields that surround the Pennsylvania town. Dead horses and soldiers still lay rotting where they’d fallen that summer. The whole town was polluted with their stench.

Lincoln arrived one night before he was to deliver his speech; both the president and Mr. Everett were given lodging at the home of event organizer David Wills. The next morning, the honored guests made their way towards the cemetery.

THE OTHER GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

The dedication began with some music, followed by a prayer that Reverend Thomas H. Stockton, a prominent anti-slavery cleric, delivered with trademark zeal. And then, Everett—his speech memorized in full—took the stage. Because the New Englander had weak kidneys, a tent had been placed behind the podium so that he might take a break and relieve himself during the speech if necessary.

“Standing beneath this serene sky,” he began, “overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and nature.”

From there, Everett drew parallels between the cemetery’s consecration at Gettysburg and the reverence with which the ancient Athenians buried their fallen soldiers. His speech was loaded with historical references: As the address unfolded, Everett mentioned everything from the War of Roses to the fall of ancient Rome. He also quoted such great thinkers as Pericles and David Hume. He provided a detailed, point-by-point retelling of the battle at Gettysburg, denouncing the Confederacy, condemning the continued practice of slavery, and urging the north to strengthen its resolve. Still, Everett held firm to the belief that reconciliation between the two sides might still be possible. “There is no bitterness on the part of the masses,” he proclaimed. “The bonds that unite us as one people … are of perennial force and energy, while the causes of alienation are imaginary, factitious, and transient. The heart of the people, north and south, is for the Union.”

When Everett’s address came to a close, he had spoken more than 13,000 words over the course of two hours. B.B. French, a musician who’d penned a hymn for the occasion, later wrote, “Mr. Everett was listened to with breathless silence by all that immense crowd, and he had his audience in tears many times during his masterly effort.” The Philadelphia Age offered a more lukewarm review, stating “He gave us plenty of words, but no heart.” President Lincoln, however, loved the speech. In Everett’s diary, the orator remarks that when he stepped down, the president shook his hand “with great fervor and said, ‘I am more than gratified, I am grateful to you.’”

Those who remained in the audience were then treated to French’s hymn, as performed by the Baltimore Glee Club. And then, the president rose. Within three minutes, his speech of around 270 words (there’s some debate over its exact phrasing) was over and done with. According to one witness, “The extreme brevity of the address together with its abrupt close had so astonished the hearers that they stood transfixed. Had not Lincoln turned and moved towards his chair, the audience would very likely have remained voiceless for several moments more. Finally, there came applause.”

Everett knew a good speech when he heard one. One day after the consecration, he wrote to the president and asked for a copy of the little address. “I should be glad,” Everett wrote, “if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.” James Speed, Attorney General from 1864 to 1866, would later recall that Lincoln treasured Everett’s kind words and said “he had never received a compliment he prized more highly.”

Lincoln was more than happy to offer up a copy of the speech—and to return the kind sentiments. “In our respective parts … you could not have been excused to make a short address, nor I a long one,” Lincoln told Everett. “I am pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say was not entirely a failure.

“Of course,” he added, “I knew Mr. Everett would not fail.”