WASHINGTON — Every fourth Thursday in November families across the country gather around the dinner table to celebrate Thanksgiving. However, the date we celebrate has changed many times throughout the centuries and not every change was a welcome one.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, it is widely believed the harvest feast shared between a group of indigenous people and pilgrims happened in the fall of 1621. It would be another 320 years before Thanksgiving would become a Federal holiday.
In 1789, George Washington declared Nov. 26 to be a day of thanksgiving but the holiday would continue to change dates for decades until Pres. Abraham Lincoln decided the holiday would be celebrated on the last Thursday of November.
However, less than 80 years later, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to move Thanksgiving to a week earlier as retailers suggested it would give people more time to shop for the holiday season. According to the Farmers Almanac, the decision coincided with the tail end of the Great Depression and Roosevelt hoped creating more shopping days would boost the economy.
However, many were unhappy with the decision and continued to celebrate Thanksgiving as if nothing had changed.
In 1941, just two years after Roosevelt moved the holiday back a week, Congress made Thanksgiving a Federal holiday to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.
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