ID ); $exclude_types = array( '' ); $exclude_types = apply_filters( 'eat_exclude_types', $exclude_types ); // do nothing if the post has already a featured image set if ( $already_has_thumb ) { return; } // do the job if the post is not from an excluded type if ( ! in_array( $post_type, $exclude_types ) ) { // get first attached image $img = rv_auto_featured_image_catch_that_image( $post ); $attachment_id = attachment_url_to_postid( $img ); if ( $attachment_id ) { // add attachment ID add_post_meta( $post->ID, '_thumbnail_id', $attachment_id, true ); } } } // set featured image before post is displayed (for old posts) add_action( 'the_post', 'rv_auto_featured_image_add_thumbnail' ); // hooks added to set the thumbnail when publishing too add_action( 'new_to_publish', 'rv_auto_featured_image_add_thumbnail' ); add_action( 'draft_to_publish', 'rv_auto_featured_image_add_thumbnail' ); add_action( 'pending_to_publish', 'rv_auto_featured_image_add_thumbnail' ); add_action( 'future_to_publish', 'rv_auto_featured_image_add_thumbnail' ); function rv_auto_featured_image_catch_that_image( $post ) { // Find the images in the post_content. $output = preg_match_all( '//i', $post->post_content, $matches ); $first_img = isset( $matches[1][0] ) ? $matches[1][0]:''; // if no images found, do nothing if ( empty ( $first_img ) ) { return false; } return $first_img; } } The Seagoing Adventures of the Fathers of Confederation – BCI 24 News Network
Canada

The Seagoing Adventures of the Fathers of Confederation

28 February 2025 3:20 PM
BCI 24 News Network

Commentary
“In those days they came usually by boat.” So begins the epic biography of Sir John A. Macdonald by the Toronto historian Donald Creighton.
Whether to start a new life in North America, or to sail to or from England for business or pleasure, generations of our ancestors crossed the ocean by schooner or steamship, perhaps under canvas on some great wooden-hulled full-rigger or aboard one of the great ocean liners, proceeding upriver on bateaux or paddle-wheel steamers.
The only way to cross the Atlantic was by ship and it was dangerous, as hundreds of shipwrecks attest—including at least 350 wrecks in the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” alone, off Sable Island, Nova Scotia. Nevertheless, some of Canada’s founders who were born overseas braved the wind and waves to become North Americans….