Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated each year in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November. It is a day for families to gather, share a big meal, and give thanks for the good things in their lives. Canada has its own Thanksgiving, but it falls on the second Monday of October.

The holiday's roots go back to the year 1621. A group of English settlers called the Pilgrims had landed in what is now Massachusetts. Their first winter was brutal. About half of them died from cold, sickness, and hunger. The Wampanoag people, who had lived on that land for thousands of years, taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn, beans, and squash. After the first good harvest, the Pilgrims and about 90 Wampanoag men shared a three-day feast. Most history books call this the "First Thanksgiving."

The real story is more complicated. Native peoples had held harvest celebrations long before the Pilgrims arrived. The 1621 feast was a single event, not the start of a yearly tradition. And the friendship between the two groups did not last. Within 50 years, war and disease had destroyed much of the Wampanoag nation. Today, some Native Americans gather in Plymouth, Massachusetts each year for a National Day of Mourning, to remember what was lost.

Thanksgiving did not become a national holiday for more than 200 years. A magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale wrote letters to five presidents asking them to make it official. President Abraham Lincoln finally agreed in 1863, during the Civil War. He hoped a shared day of thanks might help heal a country torn in half.

The modern Thanksgiving meal is built around a roasted turkey. Side dishes usually include stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Many of these foods come from plants the Wampanoag and other Native peoples first grew. The 1621 feast probably included deer, wild birds, fish, and corn, but historians are not sure turkey was even on the table.

Thanksgiving today is about more than food. Many people watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, which has marched down the streets every year since 1924. Football games play on television. Volunteers serve meals at shelters for people who do not have homes or families nearby. The day after Thanksgiving, called Black Friday, is one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

For many Americans, the heart of the holiday is simple. People stop, sit down together, and say out loud what they are grateful for.