Now, that was a long time coming - 346 years, to be exact

Columnist Brian McGrory of The Boston Globe reported yesterday that Tiffany Smalley, a Wampanoag Indian, will graduate from Harvard College on May 26.

So what, you ask? So this: Smalley will be the first Wampanoag to earn a degree from Harvard since Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck did so in 1665. She will be in good company. The university will give a posthumous degree to Joel Iacommes, a fellow Wampanoag, who should have received a degree in 1665 but was killed in a shipwreck shortly before graduation, while visiting his family on the island of Martha's Vineyard, off the Massachusetts mainland.

History buffs will recall that it was the Wampanoag, under the leadership of Massasoit, who helped the Pilgrims survive their first winter at Plymouth in 1620-21, and who joined them in 1621 at a three-day harvest festival that we now celebrate as the first Thanksgiving.

You can read McGrory's column here.