Squanto was a tragic character in the original Thanksgiving story

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.

Many myths continue to circulate about the first Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving myth didn’t really start in 1621, argues historian David Silverman in this interview with Smithsonian. Rather, it took hold over 200 years later. During the Civil War, Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln as a way to promote national unity. The tidy story of friendship between Native Americans and colonists was used to quell racial tensions of the late 19th century.

The efforts to save the wild turkey

An essential character in American tradition, the wild turkey is more than just the meat you eat on Thanksgiving. Listen to this four-part miniseries to learn what they symbolize, the long-lasting efforts to preserve this bird, and why their conservation matters.

Turkey likely wasn't served at the first Thanksgiving

There is no record of turkey on that first table, though one account vaguely refers to "fowl." The meal mostly consisted of seafood and venison.

Cow tongue was once a Thanksgiving delicacy

Cow feet and tongue were sometimes included in mincemeat pies—a popular 18th-century dish. Josefa Hale, who inspired Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a holiday, said they were “indispensable; but [hoped] this rich, expensive, and exceedingly unhealthy diet will be used very sparingly...”

Europeans' arrival to America brought disease to Indigenous populations

Indigenous people lived in the Americas for centuries before the arrival of the first Europeans in the 15th century. Their arrival was disastrous for Native tribes; in addition to being enslaved and losing their land, they had no natural immunity to the diseases brought by colonists. Eventually, up to 95% of the Native American population was killed by illnesses including typhus, chickenpox, and cholera, an event now known as the Great Dying.

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.

In 1820, a sperm whale sank a ship and inspired 'Moby-Dick'

The Essex's crew hoped to capture sperm oil, a lucrative material found in the heads of sperm whales. However, a whale charged and crashed into the ship. Survivors of the attack drifted at sea for months, and many experienced starvation, dehydration, and cannibalism. The ordeal inspired author Herman Melville.

Sacagawea’s skills and presence were vital to the expedition’s success

The group hired French-Canadian trader Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife Sacagawea to serve as translators. Sacagawea became invaluable to the Corps, as she could speak Shoshone and had a familiarity with the geography of the region. Acting as interpreter and cultural bridge, Sacagawea helped secure Shoshone horses, identified key landmarks, and signaled peaceful intent to other tribes.

All the ways colonists protested the absurd breadth of the Stamp Act

Philadelphia publisher William Bradford replaced his paper's required revenue stamp with a skull and crossbones. It read: "O! the fatal Stamp," and staged elaborate mock funerals for liberty, a comic protest trend that spread across the colonies until the act's repeal in 1766.

The Elizabethan pirate hired to find the Northwest Passage

This resource by the Canadian Museum of Natural History explores the life and adventures of Martin Frobisher, an Elizabethan pirate hired to find the then-fabled Northwest Passage, a path across the Arctic Sea that would've allowed for quicker trade between Asia and Eastern Europe. He ventured into arctic waters at least three times, returning to England each time with either fool's gold, captive natives, or fool's gold and captive natives.

Caesar's true betrayer wasn't Brutus but Decimus, a conspirator history forgot

It was Decimus—not Brutus—who was closest to Caesar, dined with him the night before his murder, and talked him out of skipping the Senate meeting on the Ides of March when Caesar grew suspicious. This article argues that in his play named after the Roman dictator, Shakespeare immortalized the wrong man. Decimus was captured and executed within two years; Brutus and Cassius took slightly longer to meet their ends.

Why the Gunpowder Plot failed, and other questions answered by historians

The 1605 Gunpowder Plot aimed to blow up the English Parliament and King James VI and I. Guy Fawkes, often associated with the plot, was not the mastermind; Robert Catesby and Thomas Wintour led it. They selected Parliament as their target due to...

The story of Sweeney Todd was first told in 1800s penny dreadfuls

The demon barber of Fleet Street made his first print appearance between the pages of penny dreadfuls, cheaply made serials filled with grisly tales and sold for a single penny. The tale of Sweeney Todd was published in 18 parts over the course of 18 weeks between November 1846 and March 1847. The series was expanded into 92 parts and later gathered into a single volume published in 1850.

An Aztec skull whistle discovered in the 1990s was mistaken for a toy

In the late 1990s, archaeologists unearthed a sacrificed man clutching two skull-shaped clay whistles at a Mexico City temple to the wind god Ehecatl (eh-HEH-kahtl). Initially dismissed as toys, the instruments produce a scream-like sound that modern brain scans show triggers fear and urgency responses in listeners. This podcast explores the discovery.

How pitcher Pedro Martinez helped reverse the curse of the Red Sox

The team had not won a World Series for nearly 100 years—while their rivals, the Yankees, had won 26. The Dominican pitcher joined the club in 1997 and helped lead the team to reverse the curse.

Marlon Brando sent Apache and Yaqui actor and activist Sacheen Littlefeather to reject his Oscar

Each year at the Academy Awards, winners of the highest achievements in film give speeches expressing their gratitude, while also venturing into politics, humor, and emotion. Some speeches are met with boos, including Littlefeather's message from Brando refusing the award in protest of Hollywood’s treatment and portrayal of Native Americans in film. Others have remained memorable for their brevity, like Joe Pesci's six-word acceptance.

Inti, the Sun God of the Inca

The Incas were polytheistic, worshiping many gods, but Inti was the most powerful one in the pantheon. He was the god of the sun and also ruled over agriculture, fertility, and war. Inti was mainly a benevolent deity, though the Inca believed that solar eclipses meant Inti wasn’t pleased. To appease him, the Inca gave sacrificial offerings including food, white llamas, and even human beings.

A blend of brilliance and humor made Stephen Hawking's cameos unforgettable

Throughout his life, he appeared in numerous pop culture moments—from "The Simpsons" to "The Big Bang Theory"—showing his talent for comedy and his love of science outreach. He was the only person to play himself on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," even writing some of his own lines.

Twain's ‘To the Person Sitting in the Darkness’ satirized American imperialism

The 1901 essay was a response to the Philippine-American War as well as Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden,” which argued that Western nations had a moral duty to rescue non-Western nations from ignorance. Twain’s essay ironically encouraged lecturing citizens of the countries being invaded: “for the sake of the Business we must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in another and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions for him.”

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

'Johnny Appleseed' was the itinerant horticulturalist John Chapman

Born in 1774 in Massachusetts, Chapman planted apple orchards for pioneers across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, to be sold to locals to produce hard cider. He became famous through a 'Harper's Weekly' profile in the late 1800s, cultivating the modern legend.

A mescaline-induced hallucination stayed with Jean-Paul Sartre throughout his life

In 1935, Sartre was injected with mescaline, a psychedelic drug that was then used to treat alcoholism and depression, by his friend at the Hôpital Sainte-Anne in Paris. It was not a good trip: Sartre saw nightmarish crabs for days and suffered a mental breakdown. For the rest of his life, crustaceans like the ones he saw during the hallucination appeared in his works.

A poignant account of what happened on Flight 93

Todd Beamer was a religious family man. Mark Bingham was gay, a PR executive and a keen sportsman. The story of Flight 93 shows how these two very different men became heroes of America.

Hear the story of Saint Nicholas, the inspiration for modern Santa Claus

A fourth-century Greek bishop in Turkey, Nicholas was known for his generosity and gift-giving. Legend holds that he secretly tossed gold bags through a window to save three sisters from slavery, which landed in stockings drying by the fire.

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

Malcolm Butler's late interception sealed the Patriots' Super Bowl XLIX victory

In Super Bowl XLIX, the Seattle Seahawks' potential game-winning drive ended when Malcolm Butler intercepted a goal-line pass, sealing a 28-24 victory for the New England Patriots.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

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

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

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

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

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

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

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.'

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Experimental hantavirus vaccines and therapies, still under development, have long been funded by the US military.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.