Thanksgiving 2019: History of the annual national holiday celebrated in USA and Canada

Thanksgiving is an annual holiday that is celebrated in the United States and Canada. On this day, citizens celebrate their harvest and all the blessings from their past year. This year, the day will occur on November 28th, Thursday. 

History of the Thanksgiving festival

As the story goes, back in September 1620, a small ship called Mayflower with 102 passengers left Plymouth, England. The passengers were an assortment of people - religious separatists who were seeking a new space and home where they could freely practice their faith. They sailed for 66 days and finally reached Cape Cod, very far from the destination they intended on going to. A month later, they crossed Massachusetts and established their village at Plymouth. 

Significance of the Thanksgiving festival

The new settlers needed to survive but by the time they had arrived, it was too late into winter to grow crops causing half of them to die from diseases. The next spring, the local settlers taught them how to harvest crops like corn and also how to hunt fish. In 1621 Autumn, they produced loads of crops including barley, beans, pumpkin, etc. Since they were thankful, they planned a feast and invited the locals who brought along deer and turkey to roast. This is how the festival came to be and how the original inhabitants as well as the immigrants began celebrating the Autumn harvest with a feast of thanks. 

Thanksgiving as a National Holiday

In 1789, George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation where he called upon the Americans to express their gratitude for the conclusion to the country's war of independence and America's confimation of the constitution. In 1817, many states started to adopt the annual Thanksgiving holiday. 

Some of the traditions of Thanksgiving include:

1. A bountiful meal of Turkey with close family and friends. 
2. Consumption of stuffed foods like mashed potatoes. cranberry sauce, Pumpkin pie. etc. 
3. Volunteering, food drives, etc. towards the less fortunate. 
4. The Thanksgiving parade presented by the Macy's departmental store.   

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