Every year, on the fourth Thursday in November, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a commemoration of the 1621 harvest feast when the colonists, who came from England, shared a friendly meal with the land’s Indigenous people. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, site of the first Thanksgiving, historians and others try to separate fact from fiction surrounding the legend […]
WASHINGTON – In the fall of 1621, English settlers at Plymouth marked their first harvest and began stockpiling food for the winter: cod, bass and other fish, venison, wild turkey and duck that could dried or salted to supplement plentiful Indian corn. Tisquantum, commonly known as Squanto, was a member of the Patuxet band of the […]
Painting of George Washington with his family, wife Martha, and her grandchildren, by artist Edward Savage. In September 1789, members of America’s first Congress approached the nation’s first president, George Washington, and asked him to call for a national Thanksgiving. That seemingly benign request ignited a furor in Congress over presidential powers and states’ rights. […]
WASHINGTON — Each year on the last Thursday of November, families in the United States gather to celebrate Thanksgiving. It was originally intended as a day of prayer and gratitude — not just for good harvests but for a leader’s good health or success in battle. Today, the holiday revolves around a sentimentalized retelling of the […]