11/20/2017 Thanksgiving (United States) - Wikipedia Thanksgiving (United States) Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a public holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November[1] in the United States. It Thanksgiving originated as a harvest festival. Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, after Congress requested a proclamation by George Washington.[2] It has been celebrated as a federal holiday every year since 1863, when, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens," to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.[3][4] Together with Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader fall/winter holiday season in the U.S. The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was Family saying grace before celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in Thanksgiving dinner in [5] October 1621. This feast lasted three days, and—as accounted by Neffsville, Pennsylvania, attendee Edward Winslow[6]—it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims.[7] The New England colonists were accustomed to 1942 regularly celebrating "thanksgivings"—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.[8] Observed by United States Contents Type National 1 History Celebrations Giving 1.1 Early thanksgiving observances thanks, 1.2 Harvest festival observed by the Pilgrims at Plymouth prayer, 1.3 Other colonies 1.4 The Revolutionary War to nationhood feasting, 1.5 Thanksgiving proclamations in the first thirty years of spending nationhood 1.6 Lincoln and the Civil War time with 1.7 Post-Civil War era family, 1.8 1939 to 1941 1.9 1942 to present football 2 Traditional celebrations games, 2.1 Charity 2.2 Foods of the season parades 2.3 Giving thanks 2.4 Parades Date Fourth 2.5 Sports Thursday in 2.6 Television 2.7 Radio November 2.8 Turkey pardoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States) 1/26 11/20/2017 Thanksgiving (United States) - Wikipedia 2.9 Vacation and travel Frequency Annual 3 Criticism and controversy 4 Date Related to Thanksgiving 4.1 Table of dates (2000–2103) in Canada 4.2 Days after Thanksgiving 5 Literature Thanksgiving 5.1 Poetry in Norfolk 6 Music 7 Notes Island 8 References Thanksgiving 9 Further reading in Liberia 10 External links Thanksgiving in Leiden, History Netherlands Thanksgiving Early thanksgiving observances Setting aside time to give thanks for one's blessings, along with holding in Saint feasts to celebrate a harvest, are both practices that long predate the Lucia European settlement of North America. The first documented thanksgiving services in territory currently belonging to the United States were conducted by Spaniards[9][10] and the French[11] in the 16th century. Wisdom practices such as expressing gratitude, sharing, and giving away, are integral to many indigenous cultures and communities. Thanksgiving services were routine in what became the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607,[12] with the first permanent settlement of Jamestown, Virginia holding a thanksgiving in 1610.[9] In 1619, 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia. The group's London Company charter specifically required "that the day of our Shrine of the first U.S. Thanksgiving ships arrival at the place assigned... in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and in 1619 at Berkeley Hundred in perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."[13][14] Three Charles City County, Virginia years later, after the Indian massacre of 1622, the Berkeley Hundred site and other outlying locations were abandoned and colonists moved their celebration to Jamestown and other more secure spots. Harvest festival observed by the Pilgrims at Plymouth External video Americans also trace the Thanksgiving holiday to a 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the settlers held a harvest feast after a successful growing season. Autumn or early winter feasts continued sporadically in later years, first as an impromptu religious observance and later as a civil tradition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States) 2/26 11/20/2017 Thanksgiving (United States) - Wikipedia Squanto, a Patuxet Native American who resided with the Wampanoag tribe, The True Story of the taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn and served as an interpreter for them. Squanto had learned the English language during his First Thanksgiving (htt enslavement in England. The Wampanoag leader Massasoit had given food to p://video.pbs.org/video/ the colonists during the first winter when supplies brought from England were insufficient. 2365615188/), The Pilgrims celebrated at Plymouth for three days after their first harvest in American Experience, 1621. The exact time is unknown, but James Baker, the Plimoth Plantation PBS, November 24, vice president of research, stated in 1996, "The event occurred between Sept. 2015 [15] 21 and Nov. 11, 1621, with the most likely time being around Michaelmas (Sept. 29), the traditional time."[16] Seventeenth-century accounts do not identify this as a Thanksgiving observance, rather it followed the harvest. It included 50 persons who were on the Mayflower (all who remained of the 100 who had landed) and 90 Native Americans.[16] The feast was cooked by the four adult Pilgrim women who survived their first winter in the New World (Eleanor Billington, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mary Brewster, and Susanna White), along with young daughters and male and female servants.[16][17] Two colonists gave personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth. The Pilgrims, most of whom were Separatists (English Dissenters), are not to be confused with Puritans, who established their own Massachusetts Bay Colony on the Shawmut Peninsula (current day Boston) in 1630.[18][19] Both groups were strict Calvinists, but differed in their views regarding the Church of England. Puritans wished to remain in the Anglican Church and reform it, while the Pilgrims wanted complete separation from the church. William Bradford, in Of Plymouth Plantation wrote: "Pilgrims" are often confused with "Puritans". This sculpture The Pilgrim by They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, Augustus St. Gaudens is based on his earlier work The Puritan and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they can be used (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to the proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.[20] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States) 3/26 11/20/2017 Thanksgiving (United States) - Wikipedia Edward Winslow, in Mourt's Relation wrote: Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some The First Thanksgiving 1621, oil on canvas by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1899). The ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and painting shows common misconceptions feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we about the event that persist to modern brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, times: Pilgrims did not wear such outfits, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not and the Wampanoag are dressed in the always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by style of Native Americans from the Great [21] the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we Plains. often wish you partakers of our plenty.[22] The Pilgrims held a true Thanksgiving celebration in 1623[23][24] following a fast,[25] and a refreshing 14-day rain[26] which resulted in a larger harvest. William DeLoss Love calculates that this thanksgiving was made on Wednesday, July 30, 1623, a day before the arrival of a supply ship with more colonists,[25] but before the fall harvest. In Love's opinion this 1623 thanksgiving was significant because the order to recognize the event was from civil authority[27] (Governor Bradford), and not from the church, making it likely the first civil recognition of Thanksgiving in New England.[25] The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, oil on Referring to the 1623 harvest after the nearly catastrophic drought, canvas by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe (1914) Bradford wrote: And afterwards the Lord sent them such seasonable showers, with interchange of fair warm weather as, through His blessing, caused a fruitful and liberal harvest, to their no small comfort and rejoicing. For which mercy, in time convenient, they also set apart a day of thanksgiving… By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine now God gave them plenty … for which they blessed God.