Hopefully everyone had a great Thanksgiving yesterday, and got a chance to pig out without taking it too far. We all know that Thanksgiving is supposed to commemorate a historically significant meal shared by Pilgrims and Native Americans in Massachusetts, but that famous dinner was not really the first Thanksgiving in America.

Long before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, the Spanish created the first long-lasting New World European settlement in St. Augustine. Spanish settlers and free and enslaved Africans lived and worked closely alongside Native Americans to develop a culture in St. Augustine that blended all three cultural traditions. The first Thanksgiving dinner in America was held in St. Augustine on Sept. 8, 1565, long before English settlers founded the colony of Massachusetts.

You can learn more about the first American Thanksgiving and the early years of the St. augustine settlement by checking out the exhibit First Colony: Our Spanish Origins at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Read the full article here: First Colony: Our Spanish Origins