Thanksgivining

Thanksgivining
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Because of the longstanding traditions of the holiday, the celebration often extends to the weekend that falls closest to the day it is celebrated. Severalother places around the world observe similar celebrations. Historically, Thanksgiving had roots in religious and cultural tradition. Today, Thanksgiving is primarily celebrated as a secular holiday.
History.
Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among almost all religions after harvests and at other times. The holiday's history in North America is rooted in Englishtraditions dating from the Protestant Reformation. It also has aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs well before the late-November date of the holiday.
In the English tradition, days of thanksgiving and special thanksgiving religious services became important during the English Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII and in reaction to the large number ofreligious holidays on the Catholic calendar. Before 1536 there were 95 Church holidays, plus 52 Sundays, when people were required to attend church and forego work and sometimes pay for expensive celebrations.
hanksgiving is a time when everything is put on hold and a few days are spent in gratitude and celebration. This day is filled with Thanksgiving activities. To understand the origin and history ofThanksgiving we would need to go back almost 400 hundred years to the year 1620.
It was in the year stated above that more than a hundred people who had begun to question the beliefs of the Church of England sailed across the Atlantic Ocean wanting to settle in the New World. These pilgrims who settled in the New World (now known as Massachusetts) found the New World very difficult as they hadarrived too late and were unable to grow many crops to ensure their survival.
Disaster struck and half the colony died from disease! It was only in the following spring that Indians taught then how to grow corn, which was a revelation to the colonists. The Indians taught the colonists how to grow many other crops in the unfamiliar soil. They taught them how to fish and hunt too.
Time went by andthe autumn of 1621 revealed bountiful crops of corn, beans, and pumpkins. The colonists now had plenty to be thankful for, so a feast was planned in which 90 Indians and the local chief were invited. The invitees bought deer to roast along with turkeys and other wild game. The menu also covered kinds of corn, squash dishes and popcorn.
This celebration continued in the years to come. It was onlyafter the United States became an independent country that the Congress recommended that one yearly day should be celebrated as Thanksgiving Day by the whole nation. It was George Washington who suggested November 26th. When the bloody civil war finally ended in 1863, Abraham Lincoln asked all Americans to set aside the last Thursday in the month of November to celebrate thanksgiving.
ThanksgivingFacts
•In the United States, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the 4th Thursday in November.
•In Canada, it is celebrated on the 2nd Monday in October.
Mayflower was the name of the ship that the pilgrims sailed on.
•Beer was the drink that was on board the Puritan ship.
•The first Thanksgiving feast carried on for 3 days.
•The first national Thanksgiving Day proclamation was issued byPresident George Washington in the year 1789. It was in the year 1795 that he issued it again.
•It was on the 3rd of October 1863 that Abraham Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation, which stated that the last Thursday of November was officially set aside for this day.
•It was in the year 1827, that Sarah Josepha Hale who was an editor with a magazine, began a Thanksgiving campaign. It was...