Thanksgiving Day: Quick Facts

In the United States, Thanksgiving Day occurs on the fourth Thursday in November. In Canada, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October (since 1957).

Thanksgiving is an annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year.

In both Canada and America, family and friends gather for a feast on the holiday. Traditional fare in America typically includes turkey, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. The holiday moved away from its religious roots over time, allowing immigrants of every background to participate in a common tradition.

Although it is often assumed that today’s Thanksgiving menu originated in an event commonly referred to as the “first Thanksgiving," there is no indication that turkey was served at the meal shared between Pilgrim settlers at Plymouth colony and local Wampanoag Indians in late 1621. For meat, the Wampanoag brought deer, and the Pilgrims provided wild “fowl.” Strictly speaking, that “fowl” could have been turkeys, but historians think it was probably ducks or geese. By the turn of the 19th century, however, turkey had become a popular dish to serve at unofficial Thanksgiving celebrations. Nevertheless, turkeys were not yet synonymous with Thanksgiving. Some people have credited Charles Dickens’s "A Christmas Carol" (1843) with bolstering the idea of turkey as a holiday meal. But another writer, Sarah Josepha Hale, played an arguably more important role. In her 1827 novel "Northwood," she devoted an entire chapter to a description of a New England Thanksgiving, with a roasted turkey “placed at the head of the table.” At about the same time, she also began campaigning to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday in the United States. Her efforts finally paid off in 1863 with a presidential proclamation by Abraham Lincoln. As Thanksgiving became an official American holiday, a national mythology formed around it. In a journal that was reprinted in 1856, Plymouth colonist William Bradford had referred to a “great store of wild Turkies” at Plymouth during the fall in which the "first Thanksgiving" took place. Before long, the cultural links between Pilgrims, turkeys, and Thanksgiving became an inextricable and integral part of American schoolchildren’s education.

Colonists in New England and Canada regularly observed “thanksgivings,” days of prayer for such blessings as safe journeys, military victories, or abundant harvests. Americans model their holiday on a 1621 harvest feast shared between English colonists and the Wampanoag. Canadians trace their earliest thanksgiving to 1578 when a Martin Frobisher-led expedition celebrated safe passage.