“Thanksgiving is at the heart of America’s spirit of gratitude — of finding light in times of both joy and strife,” the ...

1789 — President George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States. His successors John Adams and James Madison also designated days of ...

Many presidents ignored Hale's letters, but President Lincoln did not. His October 3rd, 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation read, "In the midst of a civil war of unequal magnitude and severity ...

John Adams thought that his Thanksgiving proclamation cost him reelection. Or at least that’s what he told Benjamin Rush in an 1812 letter. During his term in office, Adams had asked that ...

The U.S. has recognized Thanksgiving since 1789, when President George Washington issued the first proclamation designating the first national day of thanksgiving. It fell on Thursday, November 26 ...

It took the trauma of the Civil War to make Thanksgiving a formal, annual holiday. Lincoln issued his proclamation on Oct. 3, 1863, three months after Union Army victories at Gettysburg and ...

The Pilgrims? Nature? Fortune? It turns out that the record is long, clear and official. It goes back to George Washington’s first Thanksgiving proclamation, issued on Oct. 3, 1789, here at New York.

On October 3, 1789, George Washington issued his Thanksgiving proclamation, designating “a day of public thanks-giving” to be held on “Thursday the 26th day of November” that year.