Thanksgiving is the 2nd most popular American holiday after Christmas and is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. It’s all about old family traditions and the obligatory Thanksgiving dinner, but there are some more things you need to know.
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The story of Tanksgiving
There are three different tales competing for the title "The true origin of Thanksgiving," so the birth of this federal holiday in the USA is not entirely cleared up:
- Among the Wampanoag, a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans, Thanksgiving was celebrated whenever there was an occasion. This could be a good harvest, the birth of a child, or another good fortune.
- Spanish colonists celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1541 in what is now Texas with the Native American people of the Caddo to thank them for the food they had available.
- The Pilgrim Fathers celebrated a big Thanksgiving together with the Wampanoag in 1621 to thank them for their help after their arrival in America.
About 300 years before the US citizens started to feed themselves into a "food coma" at the end of November, Thanksgiving was celebrated without any rules. It was not until 1941 that the celebration of Thanksgiving was declared an official national holiday - by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Since then, every year before the holidays, millions of Americans "pilgrim" to their homes to visit their families, thus effectively paralyzing the entire US infrastructure.
