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A Prank Led to America’s First Nominated Female to Office, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan December 13, 2019 33 min

34. Take Me to Old Virginny

Pilgrims leaving the Netherlands. Scholastic

The Pilgrims famously crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the Mayflower, and ended up landing and settling in Plymouth, about forty miles south of modern Boston, at roughly 42° latitude N. However, their intended destination when they left England was hundreds of miles from Plymouth down the eastern seaboard in the Virginia Colony, roughly 40° latitude N.

The Pilgrims’ journey was beset by many delays. They had planned to sail from England in July of 1620. However, most of the people making the voyage where then living in Leiden, in the Netherlands. So the plan was for a sister ship, the Speedwell, to sail from England to the Netherlands, pick up the passengers, return to Southampton, join the Mayflower, and then the two ships would sail together in convoy to Virginia.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.