Thanksgiving Day is U.S. and Canadian holiday. In the U.S. Thanksgiving is modelled on a harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people in 1621. It is intended to celebrate the blessings of the past year. Thanksgiving Day did not become an official holiday until Northerners dominated the federal government. While sectional tensions prevailed in the mid-19th century, the editor of the popular magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, Sarah Josepha Hale, campaigned for a national Thanksgiving Day to promote unity. She finally won the support of President Abraham Lincoln and on October 3, 1863, during the Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26.
The holiday was annually proclaimed by every president thereafter, and the date chosen, with few exceptions, was the last Thursday in November. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, attempted to extend the Christmas shopping season, which generally begins with the Thanksgiving holiday, and to boost the economy by moving the date back a week, to the third week in November. But not all states complied, and, after a joint resolution of Congress in 1941, Roosevelt issued a proclamation in 1942 designating the fourth Thursday in November (which is not always the last Thursday) as Thanksgiving Day. A traditional Thanksgiving meal consists of turkey, cranberries, bread stuffing, and pumpkin pie, among other dishes.
Canada traces its Thanksgiving celebration to 1578, and Thanksgiving became a national holiday there in 1879; since 1957 it has been celebrated on the second Monday in October.
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