Thanksgiving (United States) The most prominent historic thanksgiving event in American popular culture is the 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the settlers held a harvest feast after a successful growing season. Autumn or early winter feasts continued sporadically in later years, first as an impromptu religious observance and later as a civil tradition. The Plymouth settlers, known as Pilgrims, had settled in land abandoned when all but one of the Patuxet Indians died in a plague. After a harsh winter killed half of the Plymouth settlers, the last surviving Patuxet, Squanto (who had learned English and avoided the plague as a
Raid on St. Augustine town overnight and the following day razed the whole of St. Augustine to the ground. All buildings were torched, crops were destroyed and anything of value was either taken or destroyed. The fort of San Juan was burnt and all the artillery pieces were carried away by the English among other booty. Once the English had gone Menéndez and the rest of the Spanish settlers returned to find a smoldering ruins and very little left of their settlement. He soon begged for help from the viceroy of Cuba and the settlement took a while to build itself back up. The