Today’s Thanksgiving feast has its origins in an English Reformation tradition carried on by the pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth in 1620. In an affront to the Catholic liturgical calendar, Puritans celebrated days of fasting and days of feasting—notably the day of feasting at the end of the fall harvest—in gratitude for God’s provision. In an age where consumption of food is often far removed from fields where it is produced, a growing number of evangelicals have reinterpreted the holiday as a time not only to thank God for abundance, but to examine where abundance comes from and the ethics of food, hunger, and environment.
April 26, 1521: After Charles V promises to take firmer measures against his doctrines, Luther leaves the Diet of Worms. A month later, his teachings are formally condemned (see issue 34: Luther's Early Years).
April 26, 1877: Residents of Minnesota observe a state-wide day of prayer, asking deliverance from a plague of grasshoppers that had ruined thousands of acres of crops. The plague ended during that summer.
April 26, 1992: The bells of the Ivan the Great Belltower in Saint Basil’s ...
