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In school, we learned the Pilgrims started the Thanksgiving tradition (with some help from Native Americans). That certainly sounds believable, but teachers also told us we'd one day need calculus. Justifiably skeptical, we went sailing the Web for the real story. This page on Thanksgiving Day History offers an in-depth view of the holiday. The Pilgrims reached America in 1620. That first winter, many of the settlers died. Fortunately, the next harvest was quite substantial and called for a celebration in the form of a feast. The event included "91 Indians who had helped the Pilgrims survive their first year." Interestingly, that first feast bears little
resemblance to a modern Thanksgiving meal. For one, it lasted three days, and pumpkin pie and potatoes probably weren't on the table. As for wild turkey, it's possible, but duck and goose were more likely the main course. Thanksgiving was celebrated off and on in the following years, until a magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale helped make it a permanent tradition. Hale wrote many editorials campaigning for Thanksgiving as a national holiday. "Hales's obsession became reality when, in 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving." The date was moved around a couple of times until Congress sanctioned
Thanksgiving as a national holiday, always to occur on the fourth Thursday in November. So, it seems our teacher was telling the truth after all. Sorry we doubted you, Ms. Wilson.
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