The first Thanksgiving, history of Thanksgiving and fun facts.
The Nation Celebrates Its 399th Annual Feast.
In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims — early settlers of Plymouth Colony — held a three-day feast to celebrate a bountiful harvest. Many regard this event as the nation’s first Thanksgiving.
The Wampanoag Indians in attendance played a key role but historians have recorded harvest ceremonies of thanks among other groups of European settlers in North America, including the British colonists in Virginia as early as 1619.
The legacy of thanks and the feast have survived centuries since the event became a national holiday on Oct. 3, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving.
Decades later, President Franklin Roosevelt officially declared that Thanksgiving should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of the month to encourage earlier holiday shopping.
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https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/11/fun-facts-about-thanksgiving-from-turkey-texas-to-pilgrim-michigan.html?utm_campaign=20191127msacos1ccstors&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
