Thanksgiving

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the fall of 1621, a year after the pilgrim ship the Mayflower landed on the coast of New England, the settlers of the Plymouth Colony celebrated their first successful harvest. Joining them at the three day feast were the Wampanoag people, Native Americans who had to taught the settlers how to grow corn, ensuring the community would survive the coming winter. Richard Pickering tells Don about the difficulties faced by the pilgrims as they made their way from Europe and how the first Thanksgiving forged diplomatic relations with the Wampanoag people. Creating the foundations for the national holiday now celebrated every year in America.

Produced and mixed by Benjie Guy. Senior Producer: Charlotte Long.

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All music from Epidemic Sounds.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome one and all to this year's holiday feast. Would you take a gander at that spread?
0:06.0	The candles flickering, the centerpiece all orange and gold, the glittering silver, all the good stuff, comes out only a few times a year.
0:15.0	But the food is special to this day only. The bird all browned and plump. The mashed potatoes, the gravy,
0:23.6	Brussels sprouts, mom's own cranberry sauce,
0:26.6	and the candied yams.
0:28.6	Oh, and the pies.
0:29.6	Pumpkin, the can, and coconut cream lined up on the sideboard.
0:33.6	This is going to be good.
0:35.6	We take it for granted, this plentiful bounty, if we're some of the lucky ones.
0:41.6	But 400 years ago, facing the torment of a Massachusetts winter, luck wouldn't have been a factor.
0:47.6	We needed help.
0:48.9	And it came from an unlikely source, or did it?
0:53.8	Music from an unlikely source, or did it?
1:05.2	Well, hello and greetings.
1:09.3	Welcome to a special holiday edition of American History Hit.
1:10.2	I'm Don Wildman.
1:11.5	Happy Thanksgiving all.
1:16.7	I'll say my first thanks to you, our audience. Grateful indeed that you've chosen to join us as you prepare for another glorious day of feasting wherever you'll be doing yours, on the road or at home.
1:21.7	Or maybe you're tuning us in as you're lolling about afterwards on the couch. Turkey having been
1:26.4	carved, cranberry sauce
1:27.9	doled out, a serious dose of triptophan coursing through your system. Wherever, and whenever
1:33.2	you've done so, Thanksgiving indeed, from all of us to you. The notion of giving thanks for
	...

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