The following is an encore presentation of everything everywhere daily.

If you're an American, you probably grew up hearing the story of Thanksgiving,

how the pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution to establish a new life.

But who actually were these pilgrims? Were they really persecuted? Why did they decide to cross an ocean?

And how did they end up where they did. Learn more about

the Pilgrims and everything that happened before the first Thanksgiving

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. To understand the events leading up to the pilgrims crossing the Atlantic on the Mayflower,

we have to back up to understand the religious situation in England in the early 17th century.

As I've touched on in previous episodes, Henry the 8th wants a divorce, the

Pope doesn't agree to an annulment, so he outlaws the Catholic Church and establishes the

Protestant Church of England with himself at the head. Over time, the Church of England sort of adopted many of the forms and traditions of the Catholic

Church, and participation in the Church of England became mandatory.

In my episode on the Gunpowder Plot, I talked about the Catholic response to this and how they weren't too thrilled.

However, they weren't the only ones who were unhappy with this arrangement.

There were Protestant groups as well who didn't like the mandatory participation in the Church of England.

There were many of these groups and they were generally called

separatists or dissenters.

There was also religious groups known as Puritans who wish to purify the Church of England of its Catholic elements.

Not all Puritans were necessarily separatists. Some remained in the church trying to enact change

and others left. There was one such group known as Brownists who were both Puritans and

Separatus. The rest of this story is all about the Brownists. The Brownists got their name

from Robert Brown with an E who was leading to center to the Anglican Church.

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