The History of Thanksgiving

For quite awhile now, people have set aside their busy schedules to commemorate an historical event: Thanksgiving. Have you ever asked yourself what Thanksgiving Day is, and why we honor this day once in every year?

Thanksgiving Day, to put it simply, is a harvest festival. This holiday is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, during autumn in the United States, after crops are gathered. Historically, the holiday was celebrated by many families to give thanks to God. It is now considered a more secular holiday. Most Americans celebrate this by gathering together with family and friends for a holiday feast. The Thanksgiving meal almost always includes turkey meat with a bread mixture cooked inside. Other traditional foods are sweet potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie. Stores sell more food at Thanksgiving than any other time of the year. In addition, people eat more food on Thanksgiving than at any other time of the year.

When you ask someone how Thanksgiving started, you probably won’t have a straight answer as to how it really all began. When the first European settlers in America gathered their crops, they celebrated. They thanked their God for the success of the harvest. The story goes that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 by Pilgrim settlers from England. There is evidence that settlers in other parts of America held earlier Thanksgiving celebrations, but the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving story is the most widely known.

The English Pilgrims landed in 1620 in what later became known as Plymouth, Massachusetts. Their first months in America were difficult. When spring came, the Pilgrims planted crops. A Native American tribe helped them. When summer ended, the Pilgrims had a good harvest of corn and barley. Some vegetables had grown poorly, yet there was enough food to last through the winter. The Pilgrims decided to have a feast to give thanks for their harvest, inviting members of a nearby Indian tribe to take part.

The Pilgrims did not plan to establish a yearly Thanksgiving holiday. But as the American colonies grew, Thanksgiving or harvest celebrations were held in many towns and settlements. Finally, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared the fourth Thursday in November as a national holiday of Thanksgiving. At that time, the United States was fighting a civil war, so President Lincoln liked the idea of a Thanksgiving holiday that would also celebrate national unity.

Thanksgiving is a time when Americans share what they have with those who do not have as much. Churches and other groups provide free meals for the elderly, the homeless, and the poor.

Source(s): http://www.thanksmuch.com/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)