Who were the Pilgrim Fathers and why did they go to America 400 years ago?

The story of the Pilgrim Fathers sounds almost like an adventure web series. But it’s all very true, and it tells us how the seeds of the country we now call USA was planted. We are talking of 1620. At that time, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean was not easy, to say the least. So why were the Pilgrims so bent on moving out of home?  

Who are the Pilgrim Fathers? 
UK has a history of fighting between Christian sects. Puritans, who believed in a simple but strict philosophy, and did not lay importance to churches, priests and rituals, were obviously disliked by Catholics who had great faith in church ceremonies. In 1620, a group of 100 Puritans, made up of a number or families, decided England was too bad for them. They felt that the people there were moving away increasingly form the path of God, so much that they felt they should leave their homes. They decided they needed to go to an uninhabited place and start a fresh society. After much debate, they sailed for America on a ship called ‘Mayflower’.  

Did the Pilgrims sail smoothly across the sea?  
In one word, no. Their ship went off-course, they faced terrible storms, ran out of food, got sick, several people died, and overall, it was a bad voyage. A diary written by one of the Pilgrims, William Bradford, has been published, and it gives us all the details. On the 9th of November, 1620 their ship sighted land near Cape Cod. But they had to keep looking for a suitable place to drop anchor and that took them another month. Finally, they settled for a place now called New Plymouth.   

How was life like for the Pilgrim Fathers in the New World?  
The Pilgrim Fathers started building their first house on Christmas day of that year. Despite the auspicious start, the house was not well-built, and through the harsh winter, about half of the Pilgrims were dead by February 1621. However, they learnt to cultivate maize, hunt for fowl and slowly grew as a society. And that is why a voyage 400 years ago changed the history of a country forever.