Oral history and artifacts suggest the Wampanoag inhabited the area for 12,000 years

An estimated 40,000 Wampanoag populated 67 villages in the 1600s

For more than 10,000 years, native Wampanoag people have lived in and around Rhode Island and Massachusetts, especially in the islands known today as Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Roughly 5,000 dwell in the area today, after their numbers declined amid European migration.

A map of Wampanoag territory in the 17th century

Around the time of the first Thanksgiving, the Wampanoag lived in a broad swath of New England, including Cape Cod and the islands ringing it. This map shows the historic territory of the tribe, complete with the native and contemporary names of towns and villages.

The Wampanoag, explained

Explore Thanksgiving beyond the familiar Pilgrim narrative and learn about the Wampanoag Nation. Trace how early cooperation gave way to disease, conflict, and loss—and how Wampanoag traditions and perspectives continue to shape the understanding of the holiday today.

The 1621 Pilgrim-Wampanoag peace treaty was the first of its kind

The Wampanoag people, weakened by disease, were at risk of being forcefully subsumed by the neighboring Narragansett tribe. Recognizing an opportunity, the Wampanoag offered the settlers necessary survival skills in exchange for protection through the settlers’ firearms. The treaty remained in place for more than 40 years.

See a timeline of colonial settlement in North America

This interactive timeline uses archival maps, illustrations, and documents to trace early American history—from the failed 1590 Roanoke colony and Indigenous accounts of a devastating smallpox epidemic to the political tensions that culminated in the Revolutionary War.

See Harvard’s early history through Indigenous voices

Founded in 1636, Harvard University grew alongside English colonization in Wampanoag lands. In this online exhibit, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology highlights Indigenous voices, interpreting objects such as eel traps and grass baskets.

King Philip’s War devastated Native resistance in colonial New England

Decades of rising tension over land and sovereignty erupted in 1675, when Wampanoag leader Metacom led a Native alliance against English colonies. The 14-month war ended in catastrophic defeat, killing thousands and shattering organized Native power in the Northeast.

The first Americans arrived between 14,000 and 40,000 years ago

Early peoples migrated to the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge or coastal routes, spreading across the continent as hunter-gatherers. Archaeological sites in present-day New Mexico containing stone tools and animal bones mark some of the earliest confirmed evidence of human life in North America.

Napa Valley was originally inhabited by the Indigenous Wappo people

Before the wineries, Napa was home to several Indigenous tribes, collectively called the Onasatis or Wappo, who lived and hunted on the land for generations before Spanish missionaries and settlers arrived. Some of their practices, like controlled burns of the dry brush, helped shape the fertility of the land for future agriculture.

Native Americans developed pottery and religion, and experienced population growth during the Woodland period

Between 500 B.C.E. and 1100 C.E., Indigenous peoples produced pottery and practiced animism, a spiritual worldview in which animals, plants, and natural forces are believed to possess sacred power. They moved seasonally to make the most of available resources.

The Indigenous people of the central Californian coast made many advancements

The Indigenous people of the central Californian coast made advancements in basketry, small stone tools, the use of shell beads as currency, and plank canoes for seafaring. In the years before European contact, their numbers reach 25,000 across 150 settlements.

European diseases killed a massive share of the Native American population

After Western contact, epidemic diseases devastated Indigenous communities. By 1920, the Native American population of the US had fallen to roughly 270,000, compared with an estimated 1.2 to 18 million at the time of European arrival.

Historians estimate only 1% of shipwrecks have been discovered

The oldest known shipwreck dates to around 2,700–2,300 BCE, but evidence suggests humans started open-ocean sailing at least 50,000 years ago. Many have completely deteriorated but artifacts aboard the vessels remain, while many lack historical records of the event or location.

How did Polynesian wayfinders navigate the Pacific Ocean?

Ancient Polynesian navigators used the sun, moon, stars, clouds, currents, and more to sail the seas. People of Southeast Asia began their voyages to the region now known as Polynesia in roughly 1500 BCE. They would settle a vast area of 15 million square miles, including hundreds of islands, moving from islands due to overpopulation or war. Such voyages dwindled in 1300 CE as societies became more rooted.

Spanish colonists celebrated alongside the Seloy tribe in Florida in 1565

Long before the 1621 meal between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and 800 Spanish settlers founded the city of St. Augustine in Spanish la Florida. They celebrated the founding with a Mass of Thanksgiving with the Indigenous Seloy tribe.

European colonists encountered barbecue by the 16th century

They called the food “barbacoa” and spread the technique throughout their territories, including the American colonies. The first recorded mention in English appeared in John Lederer’s travelogue of Virginia and the Carolinas in 1672.

See how New York City has grown since 1609

Wall Street and the southern tip of Manhattan were the first parts of the island to be developed beyond farmland by Dutch and English settlers. It wasn’t long until New York City resembled the city we know today.

The Wrights descended from English-born migrants to Boston in the 1630s

Samuel Wright was a Puritan who arrived in Massachusetts just two decades after the Pilgrims. His great-great-grandson Daniel Wright, born in Connecticut in 1757, fought in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, seeing action at the Battle of Saratoga.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

Yellowstone was the world's first national park

Before it was designated as such, it was home to 27 Indigenous tribes, including the Blackfeet, Crow, and Nez Perce. European trappers and traders traveling west were entranced by the area’s stunning beauty and natural resources, fueling a push for the government to preserve the land for future generations.

A timeline of the ancient Greeks

When exactly were the Ancient Greeks around on Earth? Their roots go back nearly 9,000 years to the Bronze Age with the so-called Minoan civilization. These sea-faring tribes would come together to hold off the invading Persian Empire and culminate in the glories of Athenian democracy, Spartan military discipline, and more. Check out this thorough timeline of the Ancient Greeks.

Cats began cozying up to humans around 10,000 years ago

The feline family is a hugely diverse group of lions, panthers, and kitties that have spread all over the world. The ancestors of the cats we love today helped solve rodent problems when humans first invented agriculture. They've been worshipped, loved, and scorned by humans since.

The centuries-old history of titanium white goes back to the Inca

Titanium white can be found in items ranging from paint to pills. Though it was created in New York in 1908, the pigment was first used hundreds of years earlier by the Inca, according to this article.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Opium's history traces from religious use to mass-market commercial products

Religious or medical use of opium was present across Europe and Asia as early as 5000 BCE. By the 16th century, humanity had come to see opium as more than medicine: It was a marketable product. This perspective also defines today's relationship with opioids, highly addictive painkillers at the heart of an ongoing drug crisis.

Pompeii Explained

Buried under 20 feet of ash in 79 CE, Pompeii preserved villas, street-food shops, frescoes, and victims’ casts in extraordinary detail. Excavated from 1748, it offers a rare glimpse into Roman life, still overshadowed by the active Mount Vesuvius.

Americans touring the Louvre were inspired to create their own grand museums

The one-time royal residence was first transformed into a public museum in 1793 amid the French Revolution. Americans visiting in the early 1800s were both turned off by the aristocratic grandeur and compelled by the open access to the public. James Fenimore Cooper, the author of "The Last of the Mohicans," apparently came and measured the length of galleries.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.