First Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving
Prayer before carving a turkey at Thanksgiving dinner in Neffsville, Pennsylvania, 1942
Observed by	United States
Type	National
Celebrations	Giving thanks, prayer, feasting, spending time with family, football games, parades
Date	Fourth Thursday in November
Frequency	Annual
Related to	Thanksgiving in Canada Thanksgiving in Norfolk Island Thanksgiving in Liberia Thanksgiving in Leiden, Netherlands Thanksgiving in Saint Lucia

External video

The True Story of the First Thanksgiving, American Experience, PBS, November 24, 2015

Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a public holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. It originated as a harvest festival. Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, after a proclamation by George Washington. 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. Together with Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader holiday season.

The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621. This feast lasted three days, and—as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow—it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings"—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.

Setting aside time to give thanks for one's blessings, along with holding feasts to celebrate a harvest, are both practices that long predate the European settlement of North America. The first documented thanksgiving services in territory currently belonging to the United States were conducted by Spaniards and the French in the 16th century. Wisdom practices such as expressing gratitude, sharing, and giving away, are an integral part of indigenous communities since time immemorial.