Thanksgiving (United States)
Next: November 26, 2026
Thank the people around your table.
The story
Where it comes from
American Thanksgiving grew from colonial days of thanks for a good harvest. George Washington proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving for Thursday 26 November 1789, but later dates varied until Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor who had campaigned for a national day since 1846, wrote to Abraham Lincoln. His proclamation of 3 October 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, set the last Thursday of November. In 1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it a week earlier to lengthen the Christmas shopping season, and 16 states refused. In 1941 Congress fixed the fourth Thursday, from 1942.
How it's celebrated
Families and friends gather for a large shared meal, usually built around a roast turkey, and many take a moment to say what they are grateful for. In New York the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, first held on 27 November 1924, floats giant character balloons through Manhattan and has been televised nationally since 1953. Each year the president also issues a Thanksgiving proclamation.
Did you know
- The 1621 harvest feast at Plymouth, shared by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag leader Massasoit with some 90 of his men, was only called the 'First Thanksgiving' in the 19th century.
- The parade's first balloon, Felix the Cat, appeared in 1927, replacing the zoo animals that had frightened young spectators.
- Japan has its own Labour Thanksgiving Day on 23 November, which grew out of an ancient rice-harvest rite.
The greeting
Happy Thanksgiving
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