The History of Thanksgiving

By Jakob Clifford

It all began on November 26, 1621. When the pilgrims of Plymouth and the local Wampanoag tribe shared a feast. They had food like birds, corn, and other fairly common foods at the time. That was the first instance of Thanksgiving. 
According to Smithsonian Magazine, it was then a tradition of prayer to god until around 1769. In 1769, a local reverend trying to promote tourism in New England made a footnote in a poem that stated, "This was the first Thanksgiving, the great festival of New England." People soon noticed this footnote and widely accepted that fact. In the middle of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln ( in an attempt to promote National Unity) declared Thanksgiving a National Holiday(On both August 6th and November 26th). But Presidents still had to declare it a National Holiday. Every President Declared it on the last Thursday of November, Until 1939 when FDR declared it on the 4th Thursday of November. Then in 1941, Congress established it as a yearly National Holiday. Then in 1989, George H. W. Bush started the tradition of "pardoning" a turkey.