Guest “implied face palm” by David Middleton
How Is This science?
Why the Thanksgiving myth persists, according to science
Memory often favors a tidy narrative over the messier reality of history
By Sujata Gupta
Social Sciences Writer
22 HOURS AGO
Ask someone in the United States to name five events important to the country’s foundation and there’s a good chance they’ll mention the Pilgrims.
That’s what researchers found a few years ago when they put that question to some 2,000 people. The Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas and the Civil War topped the list. But coming in seventh place were the Pilgrims, the team reported in 2022 in Memory Studies.
[…]
The “Thanksgiving myth” is part of that tale, says coauthor and cognitive psychologist Henry Roediger, also at Washington University. The shorthand for that story, he says, goes like this: In 1621, the Pilgrims and Native Americans “had this peaceful meal and powwow [while] singing kumbaya.”
The two groups did engage in a peaceful harvest celebration in the fall of 1621, history suggests. But historians are quick to point out that the tidy tale ignores context, particularly the deadly diseases and bloody wars that devastated Indigenous populations both before and after the occasion.
Despite persistent efforts to flesh out the historical record, the kumbaya vision persists.
[…]
America’s origin story is still in its messy middle
Breaking up with the Thanksgiving narrative is no easy feat. But some people in the United States are starting to question Thanksgiving and other stories pointing to the country’s rosy beginnings, Wertsch says. “How do you [begin to] break a bad habit? You have somebody point it out to you.”
That’s what happened, say Wertsch and others, when a group of journalists at the New York Times launched the 1619 Project a few years ago. Led by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, that long-term endeavor began the U.S. story with slaves’ arrival in Virginia in August 1619. The nation’s story, they argued, spirals outward from that ugly point.
“If there’s anything that debunks our national origins, it’s the 1619 Project,” Bickford says.
[…]
Science News
There’s no science, apart from political science, in the article. Furthermore, citing the 1619 Project as anything other than left-wing propaganda is laughable. Yes, our history is far more complicated than holiday decorations. Easter is more complicated than the Easter Bunny. Christmas is more complicated than Santa Claus.
The True Origin of Thanksgiving?
President George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789 made no mention of the Pilgrims, sought forgiveness for our national transgressions and at least touched on science…
and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions– to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually–to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord–To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us–and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789
The Science of Thanksgiving
Oddly enough, I found this in The Washington Post:
What the first Thanksgiving can teach us about adjusting to climate shock
Perspective by Sam White
November 22, 2017
Every American schoolchild learns a version of the first Thanksgiving, a story half-legend and half-history: After the Pilgrims spent a freezing first winter in Plymouth, friendly Native Americans helped them learn to harvest the bounty of their new country the next year.
[…]
We should take their stories with a grain of salt. But there is other evidence that something unusual was going on during many of these early encounters. Advances in paleoclimatology, the science of reconstructing past climates from records such as tree rings and lake sediments, show how America in the late 1500s and early 1600s was getting cooler and more prone to drought. The trend was part of a global pattern sometimes called the Little Ice Age. The causes were complex, but the effects were unmistakable — and the way the Pilgrims coped (and failed to cope) with the shock of a new and harsh climate can serve as a warning to us as we face a rapidly changing environment.
[…]
By Little Ice Age standards, the Pilgrims’ first winter at Plymouth wasn’t especially cold, and the drought of 1623 wasn’t especially bad. But neither were their troubles over. A decade later, two years of severe drought followed by a destructive storm brought famine.
[…]
But the climate fluctuations of the Little Ice Age were only a fraction of the climate change projected under most global warming scenarios. We can’t let the reprieve of fall and winter turn our attention away from the climate realities ahead and the need to adapt, even as we give thanks for gentler weather now.
Sam White is associate professor of history at the Ohio State University and author of “A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter with North America.”
The Washington Post
The Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age was the coldest phase (so far) of the Holocene Epoch.
Surviving Massachusetts’ winters during the Little Ice Age would clearly seem to justify at least one day of Thanksgiving.
How Bad Was the Little Ice Age?
Little Ice Age
JUNE 5, 2015 / K. JAN OOSTHOEK[…]
During the height of the Little Ice Age , it was in general about one degree Celsius colder than at present. The Baltic Sea froze over, as did most of the rivers in Europe. Winters were bitterly cold and prolonged, reducing the growing season by several weeks. These conditions led to widespread crop failure, famine, and in some regions population decline.
The prices of grain increased and wine became difficult to produce in many areas and commercial vineyards vanished in England. Fishing in northern Europe was also badly affected as cod migrated south to find warmer water. Storminess and flooding increased and in mountainous regions the treeline and snowline dropped. In addition glaciers advanced in the Alps and Northern Europe, overrunning towns and farms in the process.
Iceland was one of the hardest hit areas. Sea ice, which today is far to the north, came down around Iceland. In some years, it was difficult to bring a ship ashore anywhere along the coast. Grain became impossible to grow and even hay crops failed. Volcanic eruptions made life even harder. Iceland lost half of its population during the Little Ice Age.
Tax records in Scandinavia show many farms were destroyed by advancing ice of glaciers and by melt water streams. Travellers in Scotland reported permanent snow cover over the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland at an altitude of about 1200 metres. In the Alps, the glaciers advanced and threatened to bulldozed towns. Ice-dammed lakes burst periodically, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing many people. As late as 1930 the French Government commissioned a report to investigate the threat of the glaciers. They could not have foreseen that human induced global warming was to deal more effective with this problem than any committee ever could.
Environmental History Resources
Really Bad!
“Many farms were destroyed by advancing ice of glaciers and by melt water streams”… “Ice-dammed lakes burst periodically, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing many people”… Sounds like an actual climate crisis to me.
When Science News Actually Covered Science
Who else remembers the 1970’s?
Observed temperatures were consistent with models of natural forcing mechanisms up until about 1975.
Even if anthropogenic CO2 emissions are actually the cause of all of the warming since 1975, we’d still be in “The Ice Age Cometh” mode if not for fossil fuels.
Giving Thanks for Fossil Fuels
From 1800 to 1900, per capita energy consumption, primarily from biomass, remained relatively flat; as did the average life expectancy. From 1900 to 1978, per capita energy consumption roughly tripled with the rapid growth in fossil fuel production (coal, oil & gas). This was accompanied by a doubling of average life expectancy. While I can’t say that fossil fuels caused the increase in life expectancy, I can unequivocally state that everything that enabled the increase in life expectancy wouldn’t have existed or happened without fossil fuels, particularly petroleum.
Our modern society would not exist without fossil fuels and it would collapse in a heartbeat if fossil fuels were made unavailable and/or unaffordable. One of the coolest things about being a petroleum geologist, is that I can give thanks for fossil fuels and say “you’re welcome” in the same sentence.
Happy Thanksgiving!
References
Bohleber, P., Schwikowski, M., Stocker-Waldhuber, M. et al. New glacier evidence for ice-free summits during the life of the Tyrolean Iceman. Sci Rep 10, 20513 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77518-9
Dyke, A.S., Moore, A. and L. Robertson. [computer file]. Deglaciation of North America. Geological Survey of Canada Open File 1547. Ottawa: Natural Resources Canada, 2003.
Grosjean, Martin, Suter, Peter, Trachsel, Mathias & Wanner, Heinz. (2007). “Ice‐borne prehistoric finds in the Swiss Alps reflect Holocene glacier fluctuations”. Journal of Quaternary Science. 22. 203 – 207. 10.1002/jqs.1111.
Kaufman, D., McKay, N., Routson, C. et al. Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach. Sci Data 7, 201 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0530-7
Lomborg, Bjorn . Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Volume 156, 2020, 119981, ISSN 0040-1625, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.119981.
Terando, A., Reidmiller, D., Hostetler, S.W., Littell, J.S., Beard, T.D., Jr., Weiskopf, S.R., Belnap, J., and Plumlee, G.S., 2020, Using information from global climate models to inform policymaking—The role of the U.S. Geological Survey: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2020–1058, 25 p.,
https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20201058.
But the Little Ice Age is the “preindustrial” Golden Age! Just pay attention to the Green Blob, and they like an era of war, plague, and famine.
This guy does a pretty good job of dispelling Just Stop Oil slogans.
https://twitter.com/ImMeme0/status/1726589211728589089
The links, like yours posted in the comments section are sometimes better than the article above it!!
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/84689/
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/video-of-the-day-life-without-petroleum-based-products/
And by ‘pilgrims’ I assume you mean the various religious fringe groups and extremists that left (mostly) Britain after the relaxation of the persucution of Roman Catholics but in far greater numbers during the Restoration and the passing of the Religious Tolerance laws?
Yes, damn those extremists Quakers for opposing slavery and bringing that thinking to American shores. /S
You’re confusing Quakers with Puritans.
Yes . they were Calvinists
No I am not. Mr. Pages comment said “various religious fringe groups”. So no I didn’t confuse anything. You may haps didn’t read his comment.
Why do you feel the need to be so unpleasant Richard? Some of my ancestors were Puritans possibly involved with the Salem witch trials. Some of yours may have been involved in drawing and quartering men whose only crime was to affirm their Catholic faith and refuse to say that a syphilitic sterile inbred should be the head of the church in England. That would have likely been our great great great great great great great great great great great grandparents’ generation. Yet you still find it relevant to be contentious about it.
No, Puritans were a sort of extreme protestants who thought the Church of England had too many catholic rituals remaining. Their ideology was aligned with Calvinism not Catholicism
“No”
???
No to what exactly Duker?
I am a Roman Catholic. My ancestors may have been involved in those events but only as victim not perpetrator. Some of your ancestors may well have been involved in the 16th and 17th century persecution of my ancestors. But that is by the by, the comment was sarcasm based on truth, the best kind! Why everyone felt the need to persecute the Catholic for that remark is beyond me. Oh, wait…
Richard, dear Richard. I too am a Roman Catholic, although my ancestry is mixed. You appear to be invincibly ignorant of my point. Things that happened sixteen generations ago are not relevant to the present time. The sins of the fathers are not visited upon the generations, at least not beyond the fourth generation according to Ex 20:5.
I often marvel at the Congregational churches here in New England, some of them built during Puritan times, flying their trans-LGBTQIA+ rainbow flags and ministered by left-wing lesbians. If anyone would be spinning in his grave, it should be Cotton Mather.
Evil will attack churches first, then proceed from there, like media and education institutes. Finally, almost everything is infiltrated.
Ditto with mine, several lines.
One of those lines were from the brother of two falsely alleged witches hung in Salem, Nurse and Eastey.
Two houses from my family members at that time still exist in what was Salem (now Peabody), he led the opposition to the Witch Trials and wrote a letter to the governor opposing the trial of the Proctors (his neighbors).
Those fringe groups under different names are still here in Wokeachusetts. They are still self-righteous and arrogant. They now totally dominate the state. Instead of saving souls- they now fight to save the planet from the new Satan, CO2.
Uhh no. The original Massachusetts colonists were made up roughly half Puritans and half secular adventurers. And no, the Puritans were not extremists, but they were on the outs with the English Stuart monarchs who ruled before the English Civil War put the Puritans in control for a few years.
The Stuarts were nominally Scottish. James I/VI had a French grandmother and Margaret Tudor was his great grandmother twice over. Her dad was was English king Henry VII, allegedly of Welsh and French descent. Her mom was Edward IV’s daughter, whose mom was English and French.
It is 45F outside and natural gas provides 70 F inside….thanks NG.
Same here except it’s 30F outside, 63F inside and I have a heating blanket on my lap.
Climate change could bring 4-10 inches of global warming weather when a front moves in this evening.
Well, I am sitting in my shorts by my lanai slider which is open. It was a little cool this morning so I had to put on a long sleeve shirt to walk my cat. Had a nice rain yesterday, it was much needed as it has been dry most of the fall. But now the Sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful and so are you…. sorry….. Dear Prudence.
What is it about people in Florida walking cats? Had an uncle that did that in Port St. Lucie.
Perhaps “walking ” was to general. I do not put a leash on my cat. I let her out in the morning and evening usually for about an hour time permitting, but I always go with her. Too many hawks, bobcats, coyotes and snakes around. She roams the yard at her leisure with me and my large broom handle near by. She has been trained not to go off my property. I adopted her 5 years ago from a shelter. She gets to spend time as a cat outside chasing lizards, squirrels, birds and butterflies but under my protection. She also has the entire screened lanai to lounge around in. Much better than a shelter life.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1720851049760891201
Some ‘walked’ cats decide to jump in and win races.
I’m sitting in my shorts but it was 23F when I woke up and it’s 29F now. Average low is 28F so I guess the climate crisis must be over.
Monday I stopped feeding the wood stove with the intention of taking the ashes out. Since then, I’ve let the heat pump (fueled by hydro power) keep the house cozy. Now on Thanksgiving Day I have the joy of carting the ashes to the garden area. My trees are not the best for firewood – less heat than many recommended for the purpose, and a bit more ash. But they are free to me and occasionally neighbors. Perhaps the biggest benefit is that wood harvesting keeps me physically active. [At 9:00 AM, outside is 30°F {-1°C}; headed for a balmy 44°F]
Texas history books describe the freezing of Trinity Bay, a salt water bay, hard enough that people could walk across it – now that’s cold & I am thankful we don’t have that kind of winter in Texas any longer
That’s quite remarkable.
I just read that in the freeze of 1983, ice extended about 500′ into the bay and was 4″ think in some places. I resided in that area from late 80’s through early 90’s and experienced a couple of ice storms but nothing so extreme. It can definitely get cold there and it takes out the less hardy plants and animals.
1983 was the worst freeze I can recall in Dallas. Feb 2021 might not have been quite as cold, but the power failure made it a much worse disaster. The South Texas nuclear generating station, near Matagorda Bay, had to shut down one reactor due to a frozen water intake.
Nov. 1983 was the Thanksgiving Blizzard along the Front Range in Colo., about 30 inches total. We had to move that week, fun-fun-fun.
Brings back memories. Some not so good.
Happy Thanksgiving, David!
I always enjoy your offerings here. The winter of 1982-83 was also memorable here in Salt Lake City. We did not see the sun in the valley for more than 80 days. The snow was relentless, and temperatures varied only a few degrees in the middle 20s. Snow removal had to be prioritized to lanes for emergency vehicles. Ice up to nine inches thick covered most of the roads. Along the freeways, the snow piled into 12-15 foot walls. Total snowfall for that year was not equaled until last year.
Then the sudden thaw released it in a flood almost at once. They were fishing down a sandbagged State Street downtown.
I’m always amazed that anyone would ever walk on ice- especially where the water might be moving, like in a river or the sea. Seems a bit dangerous to me. I did once walk over a frozen beaver pond- didn’t know it was there in winter covered with 2′ of snow. The ice broke and I freaked out. The water was only about 3′ deep and it was difficult to get out of there.
I often spent time in the Winter playing on the frozen wetland across the road from our house, as a child growing up in northern Illinois. If I heard the ice creaking as I walked on it, I prudently backed up to where it no longer gave a warning. I survived without even any close calls.
I spent the 60s in Topsfield, MA. We spent the winters on the frozen ponds playing hockey and explored by walking Fish Creek.
I walked across our swimming pool during the February 2021 deep freeze. Even though we didn’t lose power and the pool pump ran continuously for a week, I had to keep clearing ice from the returns.
I live in SE Virginia, near the Chesapeake Bay and Elizabeth river. I don’t remember the exact year but one time in or around the mid-1970’s the ER froze over to the point that two of my friends and me could walk out several tens of yards (meters?) from the shoreline. One of my friends had a dog that ran out so far we couldn’t see him. When the dog came running back we could hear a little bell on his collar before we could see him. So yes, it was cold back then.
The Dutch war of independence (from Habsburg Spain) lasted 80 years (1568-1648). In the middle of it what is known as the 12 year truce, from 1609-1621, when none of the protagonists could muster enough resources for the fight. Reason: widespread famine and pestilence brought on by extreme cold an wet conditions. Smack bang in the middle of the Maunder minimum.
The Maunder Minimum was from around 1645 to 1715.
Also don’t forget that in 1795 the ice was thick enough that a French cavalry regiment was able to surround and capture the Dutch fleet at Den Helder. Probably one of the oddest naval engagements.
The fleet was captured because the ice was frozen
The Netherlands became part of France in 1795
Belgium and Luxembourg were already part of France
After Napoleon lost at Waterloo, Belgium, in 1815, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands became independent countries
Waiting for the next:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na6R038WeiE
That wasn’t the only thing that George Washington had to say.
You really should include the context if you want to post something like this.
War is hell… Always has been, always will be.
Here’s the full text of Gen. Washington’s orders to Gen. Sullivan:
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-20-02-0661#:~:text=Sir%2C,age%20and%20sex%20as%20possible.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-clinton-sullivan-campaign-of-1779.htm#:~:text=Map%20of%20Gen.,Senaca%20%26%20Cayuga%20countries%2C%201779.&text=The%20American%20destruction%20of%20the,York%20and%20Pennsylvania%20in%201778.
The key phrase: The American destruction of the Six Nations’ homelands
Yes, war is hell, especially war that involves the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.
It’s often the case that an invading army is met by hostile activity from the inhabitants it’s trying to conquer. Aren’t we seeing evidence of this today that is being viewed with various positive and negative reactions? Isn’t it also natural, in fact almost mandatory, that the invaded party attempt some sort of defense?
US patriots are proud of their so-far hugely successful country, built on the bones of technologically inferior neolithics. Are the dead bodies of these people really a valid source of pride?
Are you allergic to context?
What particular edition of the “History of Colonial North America As Written By The Natives” have you been reading?
Context…
“There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle afer cycle, by force and bloodshed.” ― Mark Twain
Thank you Clyde, Twain was really bright, wasn’t he.
And in the US the “natives” has been able to stop genetic testing of “new” archeological discoveries of graves of past centuries, so as to be able to maintain a claim that THEY are the first and last and only.
Anti-science at its best to preserve “first nation” status when we know that, like monarchies, the last murderer is predecessor of the current King, so too is the last invader the “First People”.
The natives in the Americas had been going to war to take land from their neighbors since the first human crossed the Bering land bridge.
I’m guessing that you didn’t bother reading the entire thing, just the portion that supports what you want to believe.
They attacked us, we attacked back. Regardless, the natives were even better at killing each other.
I highly recommend Washington’s biography by Ron Chernow. I wish Hollywood would make a movie about our first president. There was the movie “Lincoln” and now one on Napoleon. Washington deserves one too.
These orders, a full decade prior to the proclamation in the post, show merely that Washington was a military strategist that observed and understood the differences between tribes bordering the States during their fight for independence.
“The two groups did engage in a peaceful harvest celebration in the fall of 1621, history suggests. But historians are quick to point out that the tidy tale ignores context, particularly the deadly diseases and bloody wars that devastated Indigenous populations both before and after the occasion.”
First of all, they had their own bloody wars before any European set foot in the Americas. (Aztecs, Mayans, etc.)
Second, they always speak of diseases from Europe as if it was planned and purposeful. They didn’t know themselves what causes disease.
(It seems it should have worked both ways. Any records of early Europeans getting sick after contact with Native Americans? Or did they just not know enough to make the connection?)
First of all, they had their own bloody wars before any European set foot in the Americas. (Aztecs, Mayans, etc.)
The usual mindless excuse for genocide. They fought one another so it’s fine for us to kill them all when if fact it was their real estate that was the object of Western affection and the impetus for mass murder. This was during the so-called Enlightenment when John Locke was able to justify such behavior philosophically.
“The usual mindless excuse for genocide.”
No, he is just describing the way the world works: One Indian tribe conquers another indian tribe and takes over the land they occupy. Another tribe, the white tribe, comes along and conquers the Indian tribes and takes away the land they took away from others.
It’s the way of the world. Is the white tribe any more guilty of anything than the indian tribe?
Nobody I know is celebrating genocide.
Yes, and interestingly, some give China, Hamas, etc., a free pass.
How so? It seems to me that it was Zionists who displaced the Palestinians.
There were no Palestinians prior to the establishment of Israel, there were various tribes of semetic origin and arab nomads. Palestine is a created fiction by the British.
It seems to me you are TOTALLY ignorant of the history of Israel and the “Palestinians”.
Do a little research.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_State_of_Palestine
Arabs who stayed in their homes were never “displaced”. The “refugees” chose to leave and were allowed to, unlike in Gaza recently where residents were blocked from leaving by Hamas.
You probable yell “genocide” too!
The Jews are so good at genocide that the population of the West Bank and Gaza has been reduced from less that 1 million “refugees” at the formation of Israel to over 5 million today!
There are more muslims in Israel than are Jews in all the so called Arab countries combined. The Arabs in Israel also are full citizens of Israel.
It was the so called Palestinians who insisted on the two state solution. Israel even forcibly removed all the Jews who lived in Gaza and the West Bank, at the insistence of the so called palestinians. It is also the palestinains who even though they now have the 2 state solution that they originally demanded, are now rejecting a two state solution. They now demand a one state solution, covering all of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. However they want to be the ones in complete control and for there to be no Jews in their state.
There have always been Jews in the middle east, especially in the area of modern Israel. There were no palestinians who were displaced. There were a lot of muslims who left the state of Israel after it was formed, but they did so voluntarily at the urging of the surrounding arab nations who were preparing to attack the newly formed state of Israel.
The Zionists had been returning to their historic homeland for over 100 years and buying property.
The land in question was originally part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans joined WWI on the side of the Germans. Their purpose for joining the war was to gain control of British colonies in the region. Instead they lost, and as a result lost control of most of their colonies in the region. After WWII, this land was divided up into several countries. There was both a Jewish homeland and a number of Arab countries. The people who later became known as the palestinians were expelled from various “arab” countries because they kept causing problems. They eventually settled into Israel.
As to genocide, you really should read Hamas’s charter. It calls for the elimination of all Jews in the middle east and eventually the entire world.
Please try to learn a little history and stop repeating left wing lies.
The Wampanoags allied with the Pilgrims to resist encroachment by the Narragansetts, who had suffered less from disease.
Tribes across the Americas routinely displaced others. The Aztecs migrated south from what became the US Southwest, to dominate and eat the previous landowners of central and southern Mexico.
The Six Nations ended up attacking outside their territory to mass murder Europeans. That was the impetus for Washington’s orders. It doesn’t get much more mindless than proffering an argument that is disproved by the reality behind the link you posted just two hours earlier.
So much righteousness, so little historical knowledge.
The fact that they were experts at killing each other long before the first European doesn’t justify what the Europeans did, however it does show that what the Europeans did was nothing unusual for the time. Your ancestors lost out because they had inferior technology.
BTW, the natives were quite adept at genocide when they had the chance.
You seem to be quite desperate to preserve this ahistorical version of history in which one side is all good and the other is all evil.
BTW, nobody tried to kill all the natives, why do you have to use such pathetic lies?
BTW, why do you condemn the Europeans for doing what the natives routinely did to each other?
Syphilis, brought back to Europe by Columbus’ crew.
Syphilis sailed east.
What many historians are not quick to point out:
https://fee.org/articles/why-the-pilgrims-abandoned-common-ownership-for-private-property/
That situation was described in some detail by a voice that many choose to ignore:
Rush Limbaugh – “The True Story of Thanksgiving” *
*(the man’s full context page for that here)
Good! I was going to do a search for Rush’s take on Thanksgiving and post it, but you already did that. Thank you. 🙂
The REAL scientifically authentic “green” energy sources are the ones massively greening up the planet via the indisputable law of photosynthesis.
Best weather and climate for most life and crop growing since the Medieval Warm Period.
A booming biosphere and climate optimum for most life thanks to the increase in the beneficial gas, CO2.
Its the building block for all life and still less than half of the optimal level for plants.
But the sea levels are increasing at 1 inch per decade!!!
We can’t have that!
So let’s wreck the planet with wind, solar and batteries and convince people that it’s to save the planet from the increasing beneficial gas, which is causing the climate optimum.
nailed it!
Thanks, Joseph!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and everybody at WUWT!
“… deadly diseases and bloody wars…”
the story of the human race- along with an occasional good thing
Some historian, whose name I cannot recall, said [paraphrase]: “The question is not why mankind goes to war, but why there are there long periods of peace?”
That is the basic problem with Utopias: to make them work you must change fundamental human nature. Thus the attempt always turns totalitarian.
Hence the phrase, “Hi. I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you.”
“During the height of the Little Ice Age , it was in general about one degree Celsius colder than at present. The Baltic Sea froze over, as did most of the rivers in Europe.”
I find it hard to believe that one degree would make that much difference.
True… Particularly since the current temperature is allegedly just shy of mass extinction hot.
Note that “climate” is about much more than a simple temperature.
This is why the use of “average atmospheric temperature” as a
proxy for climate is so silly.
“I find it hard to believe that one degree would make that much difference.”
Well, if you look at the U.S. surface temperature chart, it shows the 1930’s to be as hot as today, and from the point, the temperatures cooled by about 2.0C down through the 1970’s.
And, I would say the 1970’s were not really that cold, if you were living through it like I was, and I think it would probably have to be colder/longer duration than the 1970’s to bring on another ice age condition. I don’t think one degree would come close to doing it.
Hansen 1999:
The record cold for Washington State was set in December 1968.
I don’t doubt it.
That’s a global average for the whole period. At times it was colder in some places. I also think the average was more than 1 C colder.
I have seen discussions of the average temperature in the LIA range from 1° lower to 7° or 8° lower depending on which data and which areas were being discussed. The climate enthusiasts that have decided it was regional favour the far higher range whist some sceptics who are sure that it was a global phenomenon go for the lower range.
Thanks David.
[Why, when I see the word “Pilgram”, do I think of John Wayne?]
Question implied by Figure 6 – from the Lomborg part:
Nuclear is shown declining after 2020 until 2070, after which there is
a slow increase.
However, Sweden has just decided to embiggen the nuclear contribution.
Elsewhere, nuclear facilities are planned for or under construction.
This site, has news:
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
I won’t be around to watch these developments, nevertheless, I think
the nuclear share (or at least the absolute amount) will grow faster
than implied in that image.
What actually saved the colony was switching from a collective mentality to a free market.
That’s what will save us, too.
The first Thanksgiving celebration between present-day US territory Indians and Europeans took place in Florida in 1565, almost 60 years before the pilgrims landed in Plymouth.
https://www.wusf.org/arts-culture/2023-11-17/first-thanksgiving-spaniards-florida
I’ve not read Father Lopez’ letters. Did he call it a mass of thanksgiving? The mission he founded says the mass honored the Virgin Mary on her birthday.
The letter says Indians followed religious motions during the mass. Did he also mention inviting them to a feast in Mary’s honor?
Indians were invited, food was served and God was thanked for the food. What else do you need? Some sort of certificate?
Models of natural forcing mechanisms do not actually model natural forcing mechanisms. What they produce is useless and should not be given any credit.
When their models make my point for me… I’m happy to give them credit… 😎
Typical smarmy-assed leftwingnut propaganda. That generations of elementary school age children were taught by schoolteachers a simplified version of history doesn’t make the first Thanksgiving a myth … any more than wars occurring before or after the fall of 1621 make Thanksgiving a myth.
The first English colonists in what is now the northeast USA did in fact have a very tough time adapting to the winter weather in North America – in part due to Little Ice Age. As did the first English settlers in the Virgina colony of Jamestown 14 years earlier.
Additionally, the assumption of the early colonizers from Europe at that time was that the latitudes between Massachusetts and Virginia suggested a mild climate similar to southern Spain or Italy. But that assumption was incorrect because the Europeans did not account for prevailing westerly winds that produce a cold and dry continental climate rather than the warmer winds coming off the mid-Atlantic and Mediterranean producing a milder climate typical of southern Europe. So the colonists were unprepared for the extreme winter cold and relatively short growing season in eastern North America.
I read that half the pilgrims died the first winter after arriving.
True. Plymouth Plantation population fell from 100 in 1620 to 50 at Thanksgiving 1621, which was probably held in late September. Only four adult women survived to cook the meal, aided by kids and men.
Besides FL, ME and VA claim earlier Thanksgivings. The FL mass wasn’t a harvest feast, as the conquistadors had just arrived, hunting for French colonizers, whom they found and massacred. There was also a Spanish spy at Jamestown.
“As did the first English settlers in the Virgina colony of Jamestown 14 years earlier.”
I have some ancestors amoung the people at Jamestown. Pocohantas was famously associated with one of my relatives, John Smith.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocahontas
I’m descended from Pocahontas and Priscilla Alden.
Pocohantas was quite a woman. She was the toast of Europe at one time.
I am descended from Thomas Graves, who arrived in Jamestown in the “2nd resupply” voyage in 1608. He managed to survive the “starving time” which killed off about 2/3 of the Jamestown settlers. Even though Virginia is quite a ways south of MA, the climate there was still much harsher than that of England. English weather may be cooler and wetter than in southern Europe, it is still relatively mild due to prevailing westerly winds coming off the eastern end of the Gulf Stream. The English settlers had little idea of how to successfully grow food crops in the New World, and paid a heavy price.
The colony survived because John Rolfe stole mild Spanish tobacco variety seeds and his wife Pocahontas taught him how to grow it.
Rolfe was among the resupply mission shipwreck survivors on Bermuda. The hurricane which marooned them inspired Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
I found out that I’m related to William Shakespeare, too.
Ancestry.com is full of surprises. 🙂
STORY TIP
Great Article by Sujata Gupta!
In support of her Data and Facts, I found this “Fact” out just on Tuesday this week.:
Western Antarctica (which is supposed to be Melting Faster than anywhere else, we are told on a Daily basis by the Media) has a new All-Time Cold Record for August 2023! -45.54 C
Read the Data and Weep…………………………………………….!
August 1980: -28.99 C Average
August 2023: -45.54 C Average
According to this Ohio State University Polar Institute’s Website, with original Data summarized for all months from 1957 => 2022 there is No Month Colder then August 2023.
Reconstructed Byrd temperature record (osu.edu)
Reconstructed Byrd temperature record
This webpage provides a reconstructed temperature record from Byrd Station in central West Antarctica, from 1957 to present.
polarmet.osu.edu
August 1983: -42.5 C
August 1981: -43.0 C
August 1978: -43.7 C
September 1986: -44.7 C
August 2023: -45.54 C
An All-Time Ever Record Cold since at least 1957? Maybe so!
I submitted this find on Tuesday to the WUWT, and a second time earlier Today, there must be a Backlog of sorts, I guess?
I put the Data Table at my Linked In page, if you are maybe interested in this sort of thing:
Activity | Frits Buningh | LinkedIn
Thanks.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Frits Buningh
Columbia MD USA
fbuningh@hotmail.com
The Data Tables 1980 and 2023
Thanks, Sailor. Very timely and useful data for me. 🙂
Here’s a plot of the annual 1957-2022 mean air temperatures at Byrd Station, Antarctica. There appears to be a cooling trend since about 2000.
“Social Sciences Writer” — a clear warning: Abused Science Ahead!
“That’s what happened, say Wertsch and others, when a group of journalists at the New York Times launched the 1619 Project a few years ago”
That sign of approval is all we need to mark James Wertsch and others including Sujata Gupta as incompetent by reason of a partisan mind-virus.
The diagnosis of partisan incompetence should specifically include social studies educator John Bickford of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, who is on record in Ms. Gupta’s polemic saying: “If there’s anything that debunks our national origins, it’s the 1619 Project,”
Ms. Gupta quotes none except progressive academicians (specified as distinct from scholars).
According to the left, all whites, no matter when they lived in history, are to be judged by the wokest of modern standards.
On the other hand, all minorities, no matter when they lived in history, are not to be judged, by any standard, because that would be racist.
“the country’s foundation … The Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas and the Civil War topped the list. But coming in seventh place were the Pilgrims,…”
The first two involved kicking out monarchic rule. Columbus, the third event, had nothing directly to do with foundation of the US, and the Civil War was its preservation not its founding.
The primary events leading to the U.S. were the proximate births and adulthood of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the other geniuses of the American Enlightenment — talk about a low-probability event! — the Constitutional Convention, and the Constitution of the United States.
I’d expect these ideas to be foreign to Ms. Sujata Gupta. She doesn’t mention the Enlightenment origin of the US, or the Constitution, at all.
Nor the US states which were the first jurisdictions on earth to abolish slavery.
Of the historical era, sure, although Haiti usually gets the credit as being the first actual country to do so. In actual fact it was Cyrus the Great, Shah of Persia who, after conquering Babylon in 539 BC, issued a written proclamation abolishing slavery throughout the Persian Empire, as recorded on the Cyrus cylinder. That was probably the very first written abolition of slavery by a country.
Orbs, big brass ones, Britain abolished slavery long before any american state.
Britain also sent war ships to shut down the trans-Atlantic slave trade. A number of British soldiers lost their lives while on these patrols.
Pat,
there is no reason why Ms. Gupta would mention any of the events you mentioned. If you read the article it is clear that she is reporting the results from a survey of 2000 people. Their full set of answers can be found at
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1750698019856065#supplementary-materials
and if you read it you can see that out of the 2000 people surveyed only 12 thought that the
“articles of confederation” was important to the founding of the USA as compared to the 45 people who thought that the assassination of JFK was important.
I think the confusion started with Sailor76; thinking that Ms. Gupta was the author of this WUWT post. When, in fact, the post ridiculed her article and went on to discuss the Pilgrims and the Little Ice Age.
The referenced survey is well-worthy of ridicule, but not really WUWT-relevant material.
Ms. Gupta could have taken the story in several directions. She chose to write a progressive polemic. It’s not at all surprising that you’d defend it.
Pat,
you complained that Ms. Gupta didn’t mention a number of events. I pointed out that this was because she was accurately reporting the results of a survey. And while there might any number of points in the article that could
be improved the point you have chosen to attack her on is not one of them.
Ms. Gupta could readily have mentioned the obvious case for the Constitution as a corrective in the course of her article. She did not. She wrote a progressive polemic conveying a false narrative, which you defend.
The painting at the top of the article adds to the myth. The harvest would have been earlier in 1621 than now, but I doubt that the good Puritan folks would be seated outdoors, without heavy coats, to eat their meal.
Brownscombe’s Thanksgiving in Plymouth, painted 11 years later in 1925 is reported to be more accurate but still has them seated outside at a long table.
I like both.
Fossil Fuel = Geologically Stored Sunlight Solar Power in a useful form
“That’s what researchers found a few years ago when they put that question to some 2,000 people.”
I’d like to know how one can get a representative sample of 300 million people by questioning 2,000 of them…
I’d class these ‘researchers’ as charlatans.
If it occured, how is it a myth?
Secondly, how does what happened many years later matter as to whether the event occured?
Thirdly, the Pilgrim settlement was pretty early in the history of European settlement of N. America.
Whatever happened before, especially wars, would have had to been native on native.
I’ve been to many family Thanksgiving celebrations. I can’t ever remember a discussion of what happened between the Pilgrims and the natives.
Thanksgiving is about families and being thankful about what we have.
Socialists tend to feel that nobody should be happy if there is someone who has more than we do.
“according to science Memory often favors a tidy narrative over the messier reality of history”
What is “science memory”? Oh, “according to science, memory…”
People really can’t figure out commas.
Figures 4 and 5 are specious, weaker solar wind states since 1995 have driven a warmer AMO, which has then reduced low cloud cover and increased specific humidity.
Correlations of global sea surface temperatures with the solar wind speed:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682616300360