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This Thanksgiving, President Obama is calling for Americans to lend a helping hand to another group of pilgrims fleeing persecution. "Nearly four centuries after the Mayflower set sail, the world is still full of pilgrims - men and women who want nothing more than the chance for a safer, better future for themselves and their families," Obama said in his weekly address Thursday. "What makes America America is that we offer that chance."

'Nearly four centuries after the Mayflower set sail, the world is still full of pilgrims - men and women who want nothing more than the chance for a safer, better future for themselves and their families,' Obama said in his address. 'People should remember that no refugee can enter our borders until they undergo the highest security checks of anyone traveling to the United States,' Obama said in his address. Obama has vowed to veto the House refugee bill. But the White House has said it is open to working with lawmakers on tighter security measures for visitors from 38...

President Obama used his weekly address to appeal to families counting their blessings on Thanksgiving, reminding Americans that the holiday isn’t only about turkey but a tribute to the deep immigration history that led to the nation’s founding. In 1620, a small band of pilgrims came to this continent, refugees who had fled persecution and violence in their native land, Obama says. Nearly 400 years later, we remember their part in the American story and we honor the men and women who helped them in their time of need. The Obama administration said Wednesday that states can't legally block the...

New audiobook release: Mourt's Relation; or Journal of the plantation at Plymouth, by Edward Winslow Because American culture is important to celebrate and remember. In this instance, the first Thanksgiving. Mourt's Relation; or Journal of the plantation at PlymouthMourt's Relation is an account of the first year of the Plymouth Colony who arrived in Massachusetts, and is one of two books used as primary sources about the first Thanksgiving. The other is William Bradford's "Of Plimoth Plantation". - Summary by progressingamerica"Of Plimoth Plantation": Bradford's History of the Plymouth Settlement, 1608-1650

Americans should know we already gave socialism a chance. The only reason we get to celebrate Thanksgiving with lots of food is because the Pilgrims learned (the hard way) that socialism doesn’t work. When they came to America, they first tried sharing land. Gov. William Bradford decreed that each family would get an equal share of food, no matter how much they worked. The results were disastrous. Few Pilgrims worked hard, claiming “weakness and inability,” wrote Bradford. “Much was stolen.” The same plan in Jamestown led to starvation, the death of half the population, even cannibalism. Learning from their mistakes,...

[Catholic Caucus] Monsignor Christory announces that Pope Leo XIV himself is praying for the pilgrims of Chartreshttps://x.com/ab_couet/status/1932125317495394691?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

[Catholic Caucus] Record 19,000 young Catholics to walk Paris-Chartres pilgrimage amid Vatican scrutinyEighteen thousand pilgrims make their way to Chartres through the French fields at sunrise during the 2024 Paris to Chartres pilgrimage.Over 19,000 young Catholics will walk from Paris to Chartres this weekend in what has become France’s largest traditional pilgrimage — but this year’s journey unfolds under unprecedented Vatican scrutiny.Organized by the French Notre-Dame de Chrétienté association, the three-day walking journey — set to take place this year from June 7–9 from the French capital to the ancient cathedral — attracts thousands of pilgrims every year, many of...

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. The prototype of Thanksgiving dates back to the Pilgrims who celebrated their first harvest in the New World in 1621 with their new friends, the Native-Americans. Alas, giving thanks is often the exception, not the rule. In the Gospel of Luke, ten lepers cried out to Jesus from a distance, begging Him to heal them. Leprosy was a dread disease where one’s flesh rotted from the inside out until they died. And it was highly contagious. In those days leprosy was a virtual death sentence. But then Jesus walked by.

135 years ago, in 1889, to great fanfare, there was the “unveiling” (so to speak) of a very, very tall structure. In fact, at the time, it was the tallest man-made object in the world. It was the Eifel Tower, a magnificent monument to engineering. To this day, it is a landmark that defines Paris. I’ve been there a few times. The view of the city from the top is terrific. But one shocking factoid about this steel structure is that the original purpose of its creation was to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.

Another Thanksgiving is upon us. But it’s amazing how ungrateful people can be these days. One comedian quipped, “My grandfather tried to warn everyone that the Titanic was going to sink. Besides not believing him, they also expelled him from the movie theater!”

Here’s the version you were probably taught: The Pilgrims arrived here after an arduous trip across the Atlantic Ocean. They didn’t know why they were, had no idea what to do. They had nothing. The Indians took pity on them. The Indians saw them, and the Indians saved them. The Indians taught ’em how to do things they didn’t know how to do, like grow food, catch beavers, stuff like that. The Indians saved them, and the Pilgrims thanked them by growing a whole bunch of food and having this big feast. So, the story of Thanksgiving that’s taught is...

We all know the Thanksgiving story about the Pilgrims and their first bountiful harvest of 1621. We are taught about the hardships of the first winter season with over half of the early settlers dying in the first year. The Pilgrims were but 40 of the 102 people aboard the Mayflower that landed in Plymouth on the eastern coast of today’s state of Massachusetts. They met Squanto, an English-speaking Indian (for that story see the Nov. 24, 2014 Biblical Viewpoint post) who taught them to how to live off the land and negotiate a treaty with the neighboring Wampanoag tribe...

Rush's last delivery of his classic and famous story of America's First Thanksgiving.

Disney’s Hocus Pocus 2 star Bette Midler spent her Thanksgiving trashing the national holiday, posting a meme that denigrated the pilgrims as “undocumented aliens from Europe.” In a tweet on Thursday, Bette Midler posted a meme showing a pilgrim and an Indian sharing a turkey in what appears to be a depiction of the first Thanksgiving in 1621. The meme’s snarky caption reads: “Celebrating the day Americans fed undocumented aliens from Europe.” Midler’s meme inaccurately depicts what actually transpired between the Plymouth colony pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians at the first Thanksgiving feast. Historical accounts show that both the pilgrims...

Thursday, if you eat a nice meal, thank the Pilgrims. They made Thanksgiving possible. They left the Old World to escape religious persecution. They imagined a new society where everyone worked together and shared everything. In other words, they dreamed of socialism. Socialism then almost killed them. As I explain in my weekly video, the Pilgrims attempted collective farming. The whole community decided when and how much to plant, when to harvest and who would do the work.Gov. William Bradford wrote in his diary that he thought that taking away property and bringing it into a commonwealth would make the...

History of Plimmoth Plantation, 2 volumes, both in this post. You can download them for yourself . History of Plymouth plantation, 1620-1647 by Bradford, William, 1588-1657; Ford, Worthington Chauncey, 1858-1941, editor; Massachusetts Historical Society VOL 1 https://archive.org/details/historyofplymout1162brad/page/n1/mode/2up?q=Of+Plimouth+Plantation History of Plymouth plantation, 1620-1647 by Bradford, William, 1588-1657; Ford, Worthington Chauncey, 1858-1941, editor; Massachusetts Historical Society VOL 2 https://archive.org/details/historyofplymout2162brad/page/n9/mode/2up?q=Of+Plimouth+Plantation

The Littleton Historical Society’s event last week drew a crowd of close to a hundred people to hear a presentation by Littleton resident Daniel Boudillion. His main topic of research concerned the numerous New England locales incorporating the word “Tophet” into their name, in particular eight Massachusetts swamps so named by the Puritans. Illustrating his remarks with slides, Boudillion began by noting that the word “Tophet” was peculiar to the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was chartered in 1629. The Puritan Bible of choice was the Geneva Bible, a translation that used the word Tophet to depict a...

BOSTON (AP) — A former chairperson of the Massachusetts tribe whose ancestors aided the Pilgrims goes on trial Tuesday for bribery, extortion and other federal charges related to the tribe’s planned casino project. Cedric Cromwell’s criminal trial opens in U.S. District Court in Boston after being delayed for months by the coronavirus pandemic. Federal prosecutors say Cromwell used his position as chair of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to extort tens of thousands of dollars in bribes and engaged in a conspiracy to commit bribery. The Cape Cod-based tribe’s casino plan has faced years of legal setbacks, but it got a...

U.S.—New documents recently uncovered by Smithsonian historians confirmed that the group of pilgrims and Indians who gathered for the first Thanksgiving argued vehemently about politics throughout the course of the meal. The newly discovered journal seems to indicate that just after giving thanks for the meal, one Pilgrim from England drank too much mead and began to rant about “making the colonies great again,” kicking off several hours of hostile glances, passive-aggressive remarks, and flat-out argumentation. “Apparently, Uncle Charles was asked to eat at the kids’ table after a tirade about how real patriots need to support King James I,...

The Pilgrims didn’t bring ‘genocide’ to America. They barely brought themselves, with half of their company dying that first winter, in 1620-21.Americans have a great and exuberant tradition that touches our sense of belonging and our pride in coming together. No, I am not referring to Thanksgiving, that festival of gratitude, generosity, and welcome. I am referring to the equally great and exuberant tradition of trash-talking other people. Supposedly we have reformed. Ethnic slurs that were once common have retreated to the dark corners of dive bars and the even darker corners of anti-social media. We live in a time...