our hundred years ago, and after a few failed attempts to cross the Atlantic, the Mayflower began its now historic voyage, carrying more than 100 English Pilgrims to a new life in America.
What happened next is taught in curriculums across the globe: the landing of the Pilgrims on the east coast of the present-day US a few months later; the founding of Plymouth Colony; and the meal shared the following autumn between the settlers and the indigenous population that had helped them, an occasion which gave rise to the tradition of Thanksgiving.
It is this simple narrative which features prominently at the start of many histories about US nation-building.
