Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. Because of the longstanding traditions of the holiday, the celebration often extends to the weekend that falls closest to the day it is celebrated.
Historically, Thanksgiving had roots in religious and cultural tradition. Today, Thanksgiving is primarily celebrated as a secular holiday.
The American act of thanksgiving began during the early pioneer days almost four hundred years ago.
In 1620, one hundred people sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to land at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in America. However, their first winter was severe and their crops failed in the new climate and unfamiliar soil. Half of them died due to lack of fresh food.
The few who survived were saved as Native Americans of the Iroquois tribe taught them how to grow corn and other crops, all of which were new food for the settlers.
In the next autumn, 1621, bountiful crops of corn, barley, beans and pumpkins were harvested. The settlers had much to be thankful for, so a feast was planned. They invited the Iroquois chief and his tribe for this feast. The Indians brought turkeys and other wild game for the settlers. And the feast consisted of cranberries, corn turkey and deer, along with dishes taught by the Indians.
Each year, the settlers decided to celebrate the autumn harvest with a feast of thanks. In 1776, after the U.S. became independent, the government recommended that a thanksgiving day be held to celebrate the occasion.
The thanksgiving feast apart from showing gratitude for a good harvest is in fact a feast planned to thank the Native Americans for teaching the settlers how to grow and cook food.
However, by the eighteenth century, the festival lost its initial relevance as these very settlers instead of showing gratitude aplenty to the Native Americans, systematically killed the buffalo and nearly drove it into extinction; and through deceit took over the land, and treacherously decimated the Native American tribes.
Without the Native Americans the early settlers would not have survived and the United States, as it is today would not have existed !
Today, thanksgiving is a festival of family reunion. Family members gather for a reunion to give thanks for the good things that they have. A thanksgiving feast thus consisted of cranberry, roast turkey and corn, the same food that was eaten at the first thanksgiving in 1621!
Every year, the President of the United States will "pardon" a turkey, which spares the bird's life and ensures that it will spend the duration of its life roaming freely on farmland.
This year, President Obama has pardonned a turkey called Cobbler.
You can see it here:
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