“Thanksgiving is at the heart of America’s spirit of gratitude — of finding light in times of both joy and strife,” the President wrote in his proclamation. Then-General George Washington ...

Abraham Lincoln issued America’s first Thanksgiving proclamation in a time of violence. The year was 1863, and the president found it appropriate to give thanks even though America was torn by ...

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 ...

Lincoln issued his proclamation, “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” ...

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.