In the year 1620 a small group of Englishmen landed on the east coast of America in what is now Massachusetts. They belonged to different Calvinistic creeds, had home in England made rebellion against the Anglican church and had therefore had to leave England. At first they marched to Leyden in the Netherlands but soon discovered that they not could avoid persecution there either. .
On the ship Mayflower 102 puritans sailed, the fathers of pilgrimage, as they later were called, a cross the Atlantic to America, to find the religious freedom they had longed for in Europe. They had received economic assistance to the journey from The London Company who ran the colony Virginia, and were keen to support the emigration to Virginia, an English colony, which already did well by trade of tobacco. The Puritans sat course to this colony but they never reached Virginia. They were knocked out of course and landed south of what today is Boston, and established a colony that they called the Plymouth Plantation. .
The first winter in the new country was rough and took its toll. About half of the Englishmen died, but the survivors succeeded in clearing forest and come to so good terms with some of the Indians that they could buy seed from them. They sowed and could already in 1621 harvest a little and celebrate the first Thanksgiving on American soil. The fourth Thursday in November has ever since 1941, bin an official holiday. That day the Americans travel from one end of the country to the other to be with their family. Friday is a holiday for many people, so it's a good long weekend, which is worth to travel for. Actually thanksgiving is the only holiday, which Americas inhabitants of many different believes can gather around as a nation. .