Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the United States and Canada. It is a lega holiday in the U.S and first known to be celebrated in the early colonial times in New England. Going into its origins it is actually a traditional harvest festival. It is celebrated to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. While there was an underlying religious element in the original celebration, Thanksgiving today is primarily identified as a secular holiday
When the Plymouth colonists completed the first harvest in 1992, Governor William Bradford announced a day of prayer and thanksgiving which was followed by all the colonists and neighbouring Americans. It was held in 1961 as a three day celebration to the Wampanoag Indian tribe for teaching them various arts of survival techniques that are needed to survive in the New World. By the time first thanksgiving celebration was over the custom had started spreading to many states and each however set their own date. By 1789, George Washington who became the first President of the United States announced November 26th as Thanksgiving Day. Still it was celebrated on different days across the many places in the United States. Mrs Sarah Josepha Hale who was the editor of Godeys Lady Book finally decided to do something about it. For thirty years she kept writing letter to many governors and Presidents to declare Thanksgiving a national Holiday. Finally it was President Abraham Lincoln who decided to do something about it.
Finally, in 1863, President Lincoln issued a White House proclamation calling on the "whole American people" wherever they lived to unite "with one heart and one voice" in observing a special day of thanksgiving. Setting apart the last Thursday of November for the purpose, the President urged prayers in the churches and in the homes to "implore the interposition of the almighty had to heal the wounds of the nations and to restore it...to full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union." He also states that they express heartfelt thanks for the "blessing of fruitful fields and healthful skies."
During 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to advance the date of Thanksgiving Day by one week. However, since some states used the new date and others the old, it was changed again 2 years later. Thanksgiving Day is now celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. The first formal celebration of Thanksgiving in North America was held by an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who attempted to establish an English settlement on Baffin Island, after failing to discover a northern passage to the Orient in 1576. Nowadays Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.
Canada established the second Monday in October as a national holiday, "a day of general thanksgiving," in 1957. It actually originated in the colonial period, arising from the same European traditions, in gratitude for safe journeys, peace, and bountiful harvests. The earliest celebration was held in 1578, when Martin Frobisher held a ceremony in present-day Newfoundland to give thanks for a safe arrival in the New World. In 1879 Parliament established a national Thanksgiving Day on November 6; the date has varied over the years. Since 1957 Thanksgiving Day has been celebrated in Canada on the second Monday of October.