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Thanksgiving is officially celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.
This day of thanksgiving was officially declared by Congress in 1941 as a legal
holiday.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt restored Thursday before last of November as
Thanksgiving Day in 1939. He did so to help stimulate shopping during the
years following the Great Depression.
President Lincoln issued a "Thanksgiving Proclamation" on Oct, 3, 1863 and
officially set aside the last Thursday of November as the national day for
Thanksgiving. Prior to this, each President would make a national proclamation
to specify the day Thanksgiving was to be held.
Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor of a magazine, started Thanksgiving in 1827 and
it was a result of her efforts that in 1863 Thanksgiving was recognized as a national
day of giving and prayer.
The state of New York, in 1817, made Thanksgiving Day an annual celebration.
President George Washington issued the FIRST national Thanksgiving Day an annual
custom in 1789 and again in 1795.
The Wampanoag Indians were the people who taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate.
The Pilgrim Leader, Governor William Bradford, organized the VERY FIRST Thanks-
giving feast and invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians.
By the fall of 1621 only half the pilgrims who had sailed on the Mayflower survived.
The survivors, thankful to be alive, decided to give a FIRST unofficial Thanksgiving.
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