Is is thought the First Thanksgiving took place at what is now St. Augustine, Florida on September 8, 1565.
600 Spanish settlers who landed there held a Mass of Thanksgiving for their safe delivery to the New World.
The city of El Paso, Texas claims the First Thanksgiving was held in what is now known as the United States.
Spaniard Don Juan de Oņate ordered his expedition party to rest and conducted a mass in celebration of thanksgiving on April 30, 1598.
On December 4, 1619, a group of 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred which comprised about eight thousand acres (32 kmē) on the north bank of the James River near Herring Creek in an area then known as Charles Cittie (sic) about 20 miles upstream from Jamestown, where the first permanent settlement of the Colony of Virginia was established on May 14, 1607.
The group's charter required that the day of arrival be observed yearly as a "day of thanksgiving" to God.
On that first day, Captain John Woodleaf held the service of thanksgiving.
As quoted from the section of the Charter of Berkeley Hundred specifying the thanksgiving service: "We ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."
After several years, the site became Berkeley Plantation, and was long the traditional home of the Harrison family, one of the First Families of Virginia.
In 1634, it became part of the first eight shires of Virginia, as Charles City County, one of the oldest in the United States, and is located along Virginia State Route 5, which runs parallel to the river's northern borders past sites of many of the James River Plantations between the colonial capital city of Williamsburg (now the site of Colonial Williamsburg) and the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia at Richmond.
Berkeley Plantation continues to be the site of an annual Thanksgiving event to this day.
In the United States, Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day is an annual one-day legal holiday to express gratitude for the things one has.
It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November (i.e. the Thursday falling between November 22 and November 28).
The period from Thanksgiving Day to New Year's Day is often collectively referred to as the "holiday season," and the holiday itself is often nicknamed Turkey Day.
The holiday's origins trace to harvest festivals that have been celebrated in many cultures since ancient times, and most people celebrate by gathering at home with family or friends for a holiday feast.
A tradition also exists to share the fruits of the harvest with those who are less fortunate.
The settlers who later came to be called the "Pilgrims" set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621.
At the time, this was not regarded as a Thanksgiving observance; harvest festivals were existing parts of English and Wampanoag tradition alike.
Several American colonists have personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Gradually, an annual Thanksgiving after the harvest developed in the mid-17th century.
This did not occur on any set day or necessarily on the same day in different colonies in America.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (consisting mainly of Puritan Christians) celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time in 1630, and frequently thereafter until about 1680, when it became an annual festival in that colony; and Connecticut as early as 1639 and annually after 1647, except in 1675.
The Dutch in New Netherland appointed a day for giving thanks in 1644 and occasionally thereafter.
Charlestown, Massachusetts held the first recorded Thanksgiving observance June 29, 1671 by proclamation of the town's governing council.
During the 18th century individual colonies commonly observed days of thanksgiving throughout each year. We might not recognize a traditional Thanksgiving Day from that period, as it was not a day marked by plentiful food and drink as is today's custom, but rather a day set aside for prayer and fasting.
Later in the 1700's individual colonies would periodically designate a day of thanksgiving in honor of a military victory, an adoption of a state constitution or an exceptionally bountiful crop.
During the American Revolutionary War the Continental Congress appointed one or more thanksgiving days each year, each time recommending to the executives of the various states the observance of these days in their states.
The First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving was given by the Continental Congress in 1777.
As President, on October 3, 1789, George Washington made a proclamation and created the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America.
George Washington again proclaimed a Thanksgiving in 1795.
President John Adams declared Thanksgivings in 1798 and 1799.
No Thanksgiving proclamations were issued by Thomas Jefferson but James Madison renewed the tradition in 1814, in response to resolutions of Congress, at the close of the War of 1812.
Madison also declared the holiday twice in 1815, however none of these were celebrated in autumn.
A thanksgiving day was annually appointed by the governor of New York from 1817.
In some of the Southern states there was opposition to the observance of such a day on the ground that it was a relic of Puritanic bigotry, but by 1858 proclamations appointing a day of thanksgiving were issued by the governors of 25 states and two territories.
In the middle of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November 1863.
Since 1863, Thanksgiving has been observed annually in the United States.
Abraham Lincoln's successors as president followed his example of annually declaring the final Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving.
But in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that Thanksgiving would be the second-to-last Thursday of November rather than the last.
With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought this would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas.
Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would aid bringing the country out of the Depression.
At the time, it was considered inappropriate to advertise goods for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. However, since a presidential declaration of Thanksgiving Day was not legally binding, 23 states went along with Roosevelt's recommendation, and 22 did not.
Other states, like Texas, could not decide and took both weeks as government holidays. Roosevelt persisted in 1940 to celebrate his "Franksgiving," as it was termed.
The U.S. Congress in 1941 split the difference and passed a bill requiring that Thanksgiving be observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, which was sometimes the last Thursday and sometimes (less frequently) the next to last.
On November 26 of that year President Roosevelt signed this bill, for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law.
U.S. tradition compares the holiday with a meal held in 1621 by the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims who settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
This element continues in modern times with the Thanksgiving dinner, often featuring turkey, playing a large role in the celebration of Thanksgiving.
Some of the details of the American Thanksgiving story are myths that developed in the 1890s and early 1900s as part of the effort to forge a common national identity in the aftermath of the Civil War and in the melting pot of new immigrants.
In the United States, certain kinds of food are traditionally served at Thanksgiving meals. First and foremost, turkey is usually the featured item on any Thanksgiving feast table (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes referred to as "Turkey Day").
Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, maize, other fall vegetables, and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner.
All of these primary dishes are actually native to the Americas or were introduced as a new food source to the Europeans when they arrived.
To feed the needy at Thanksgiving time, most communities have annual food drives that collect non-perishable packaged and canned foods, and corporations sponsor charitable distributions of staple foods and Thanksgiving dinners.
On Thanksgiving Day, families and friends usually gather for a large meal or dinner, the result being that the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
In the United States, Thanksgiving is a four-day or five-day weekend vacation in school and college calendars.
In New York City, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (often erroneously referred to as the "Macy's Day Parade") is held annually every Thanksgiving Day from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Macy's flagship store in Herald Square. The parade features parade floats with specific themes, scenes from Broadway plays, large balloons of cartoon characters and TV personalities, and high school marching bands.
The float that traditionally ends the Macy's Parade is the Santa Claus float. This float is a sign that the Christmas season has begun.
The American winter holiday season (generally the Christmas shopping season in the U.S.) traditionally begins the day after Thanksgiving, known as "Black Friday", although most stores actually start to stock for and promote the December holidays immediately after Halloween, and sometimes even before.
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