Thanksgiving is a holiday famous in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. It has publicly been an annual tradition since 1863, when during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, Nov 26. As a federal and popular holiday in the U.S., it is one of the major holidays of the year. Together with Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader holiday period.
The event that Americans usually call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated to give thanks to God for guide them safely to the New World. The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days, given that enough food for 53 Pilgrims and 90 Native Americans. The dinner consisted of fish and shellfish, wild fowl, venison, berries and fruit, vegetables, harvest grains (barley and wheat), and the Three Sisters: beans, dried Indian maize or corn, and squash. The New England colonists were familiar to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings" days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.
