It wouldn’t be a modern U.S. holiday without social media shared messages and greetings, and it’s fair to say that former President Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach to holiday well-wishing has ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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.

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 ...