Thanksgiving Countdown

Thanksgiving in the United States is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November each year. It commemorates a 1621 harvest feast shared between the Plymouth colonists (Pilgrims) and the Wampanoag people — a celebration of the colonists' first successful harvest in the New World after a devastating first winter. While the 1621 feast lasted three days and featured venison, seafood, and wildfowl, the modern Thanksgiving meal is defined by roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving was celebrated sporadically and on different dates throughout early American history. President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November a national holiday in 1863 during the Civil War, in part to promote national unity. In 1941, Congress permanently fixed Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November (not always the last Thursday) — a change partly driven by President Roosevelt's 1939 move of Thanksgiving one week earlier to extend the Christmas shopping season, which proved deeply controversial. Thanksgiving is consistently the most-traveled holiday in the United States, with an estimated 55 million Americans traveling at least 50 miles from home. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, broadcast nationally since 1924, draws 3.5 million in-person spectators and 50 million TV viewers. The day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday — one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Many American families watch the NFL Thanksgiving Day games as a tradition, with games having been played on Thanksgiving since 1934.

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