In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims and members of the Wampanoag Tribe held a 3-day feast to celebrate the harvest, an event many regard as the nation’s first Thanksgiving. It became a national holiday in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed that Thanksgiving should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday -- and never the fifth Thursday -- of the month in order to encourage earlier holiday shopping.
Featured Photograph
Every year since 1947, the National Turkey Federation presents a turkey to the president during a White House Turkey Ceremony. This year’s turkey likely originated in Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, or Virginia, as these states produced more than half of the nation’s 271 million turkeys in 2008.
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Authority to conduct the Census of Agriculture transferred from the U.S. Census Bureau to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on November 21, 1997. The Census of Agriculture Act of 1997, (Public Law 105-113) required that a Census of Agriculture be taken in 1998 and every fifth year thereafter.
In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed a joint congressional resolution designating November 1990 as "National American Indian Heritage Month." Similar proclamations have been issued every year since 1994.