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In Our Time

The Pilgrim Fathers

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.69.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2007

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Pilgrim Fathers and their 1620 voyage to the New World on the Mayflower. Every year on the fourth Thursday in November, Americans go home to their families and sit down to a meal. It’s called Thanksgiving and it echoes a meal that took place nearly 400 years ago, when a group of religious exiles from Lincolnshire sat down, after a brutal winter, to celebrate their first harvest in the New World. They celebrated it in company with the American Indians who had helped them to survive.These settlers are called the Pilgrim Fathers. They were not the first and certainly not the largest of the early settlements but their Plymouth colony has retained a hold on the American imagination which the larger, older, violent and money-driven settlement of Jamestown has not.With Kathleen Burk, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London; Harry Bennett, Reader in History and Head of Humanities at the University of Plymouth; Tim Lockley, Associate Professor of History at the University of Warwick

Transcript

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0:00.0

Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

0:04.7

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

0:08.5

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

0:18.0

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

0:24.6

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

0:29.7

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

0:36.0

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time Podcast.

0:39.0

For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. UK

0:44.3

forward slash radio for. I hope you enjoy the program.

0:47.2

Hello every year in the fourth Thursday in November

0:50.4

Americans go home to their families and sit down to a meal called

0:53.2

Thanksgiving. It echoes a meal that took place nearly 400 years ago when a group of

0:57.7

English religious exile sat down after a brutal winter to celebrate their first

1:02.4

harvest having crossed over into what was called the new world.

1:05.7

They celebrated in company with American Indians who had helped them survive.

1:09.9

These settlers are called the Pilgrim Fathers and and although they were not the first,

1:13.6

and certainly not the largest of the early settlements, they retain a hold on the American imagination

1:18.2

far out of proportion to their historical significance.

1:21.2

With me to discuss the Pilgrim Fathers, at Tim Lockley, Associate Professor of History at the University of Warwick,

1:26.3

Harry Bennett, reader in history and head of humanities at the University of Plymouth,

1:30.6

and Kathleen Burke, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at University College, London.

1:35.6

Kettlin Burke, the Pilgrim fathers arrived in Plymouth in America in 1620.

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