The Thanksgiving Story

Having just received one of those reminders of how the Pilgrims shared with the Indians, which started the tradition of Thanksgiving, I was inspired to find a little more of the true history. Here are a few likes that tell the real story.

  • The Fourth World Documentation Project’s Thanksgiving Information has lots of historical details. You can get most of the info by reading An introduction for teachers. It reminds us that the celebration was more of a treaty negotiation, and was intended to last until more Puritans arrived to help exterminate the heathens. This item has the most details and historical references, but is also the longest.
  • The Thanksgiving Story gives an only partially-sanitized version. Short and sweet.
  • One person’s account of what they found on the internet in a similar search to mine. A good mix between lots of info and relatively short.
  • History of Thanksgiving is short.
  • The History Channel has a page on Mayflower Myths and another on Other Feast Facts. Both are short but don’t provide a lot of the unspoken history mentioned in the first item here.

Enjoy your food, but remember it’s not all about what they taught you in grade school.

Hobbits?

It sounds too incredible to be true, but this is not a hoax. A species of tiny human has been discovered, which lived on the remote Indonesian island of Flores just 18,000 years ago.

Researchers have so far unearthed remains from eight individuals who were just one metre tall, with grapefruit-sized skulls. These astonishing little people, nicknamed ‘hobbits’, made tools, hunted tiny elephants and lived at the same time as modern humans who were colonizing the area.

News@nature.com tells the story of a find that changes the world of palaeoanthropology, and challenges our perception of what it means to be human.

link

Holidays & Observances

It was sure hard to find a page that had a list of holidays, commendations, and that type of stuff. What I really wanted was a list of just those things that congress wastes its time on, like declaring the fourth week in November National Bible Week.

The best list so far is this one at ButlerWebs.com