Welcome to the history tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely

coincidental.

Hello, it's Susan. Here in the United States, it's Thanksgiving week. And Beckett and I thought

that this was the perfect time to revisit our friend, Pocahontas. Because this Thanksgiving is so

unusual, it's sheltered and small and different, and we're all

trying our best to make it special. Maybe sitting with your family and listening to the story of

Pocahontas might become a new tradition for you. Whatever you're doing this year, happy Thanksgiving

to our American friends and to all of our friends on the other side of the

mic across the globe. Please stay healthy and safe. A quick note due to a cascading series of

technical difficulties, Susan has disappeared from the first section. We will rejoin her again

in section two, but for the beginning, it is only me.

And now, on with the show.

And here's your 30-second summary.

Once there was a story about an 11-year-old girl who saved the life of an explorer from her father's wrath.

She did save the lives of his people, but not the way you've been told. The end.

Let's talk about Pocahontas, but first let's drop her into history. In 1607, Galileo invented an early

version of the thermometer called the thermoscope, and he was deep into his studies of motion.

Shakespeare's new plays, King Lear, and

Macbeth, were both being performed, except during the months between July and November, when

the plague closed all the theaters. China was in the Ming Dynasty. Philip III was King of Spain and

Portugal. Vasili the 4th was Tsar of Russia. Queen Elizabeth I had died

four years earlier, but her nephew, King James I, was still trying to fill her shoes. Former subjects

...