Thanksgiving

The Pilgrims were English settlers who sailed to America on a ship called the Mayflower. The Pilgrims landed at a place they called Plymouth in 1620. The Plymouth colony was located in what is now Massachusetts.

The Pilgrims' first winter in America was very hard. The Pilgrims didn't have enough to eat and many of them died. In the spring, a good thing happened. A Native American named Samoset came to Plymouth. He spoke English. He told them that he would bring someone to help them.

Samoset brought another Native American, Tisquantum, to help them. He spoke English, too. The Pilgrims called him Squanto. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn and pumpkins and to hunt and fish. Without Squanto's help, all the Pilgrims might have died.

In the fall of 1621, the crops that the Pilgrims had planted were ready for harvest. Now the Pilgrims had enough food to eat! The Pilgrims were so thankful that they decided to have a big feast. The Pilgrims asked Squanto to invite his Native American friends to the feast.

The Pilgrims and the Native Americans feasted for three days! They ate turkey, deer, fish, corn, pumpkins and berries. They played games and had lots of fun. They were thankful.

The Pilgrim's didn't call this feast Thanksgiving, though. The Pilgrims called it a harvest feast. It was called the first Thanksgiving years later after people had heard about their celebration.

After the Pilgrim's harvest feast, other colonies had Thanksgiving Days every year, but they were on different days. President George Washington proclaimed a Thanksgiving Day two different times. Still, Thanksgiving wasn't a national holiday.

In the 1800s, a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale helped make Thanksgiving Day a national holiday. Thanksgiving was her favorite day. She wrote stories about it in a magazine. She wrote letters to presidents and governors that said Thanksgiving should be a national holiday.

In 1863, she wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln. He liked her idea of a national Thanksgiving Day. Lincoln proclaimed the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day for the nation.

President Franklin Roosevelt changed Thanksgiving Day to the third Thursday in November in 1939 to help store owners. Many people were confused and upset. The people didn't know when to celebrate Thanksgiving.

In 1941, Congress passed a law that said Thanksgiving Day would be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. The law said that Thanksgiving was a national holiday and could never be moved again.

Today, Thanksgiving Day celebrations are a mixture of Pilgrim traditions, Native American traditions and new ones. People eat turkey, pumpkin pie and cranberries and gather together to give thanks. People also have big parades and watch football games.