Thanksgiving Day

The importance of being thankful to God or nature is rooted in all cultures, unfortunately time erased many customs and actually often people forget how meals are provided. The custom to give thanks for a bountiful harvest was quite common in Europe (Celtic tribes, Romans, etc.) and there is some evidence that this tradition was also reinforced in the United States and Canada by means of the following events: when in the autumn of 1621 the Pilgrim Fathers established in Plymouth a year ago they learnt from the Indians to grow corn, beans and pumpkin held, they fasted and prayed and a successful harvest was followed with a joint celebration with members of Native American Patuxet tribe to give thanks to God, they ate for the first time turkey and pumpkin pies because they were the most common products in North America. However, the earliest attested Thanksgiving in North America was held on September 8^th in 1565 by Spanish explorers in Saint Augustine (Florida) and in Canada it goes back in the year 1578 when explorer Martin Frobisher returned safely from the Northwest Passage it was held a formal ceremony in Newfoundland to give thanks for his homecoming and it can also be read in the founding charter of Berkeley Hundred in Virginia a special day of thanksgiving; in New France the French settlers also celebrated their successful harvests with indigenous peoples and established the Order of Good Cheer, later new immigrants into the country, such as the Irish, Scottish and Germans, would also add their own harvest traditions. This celebration was held in many dates during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, it is an annual tradition in the United States since 1863, though it was not a national holiday till Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Congress signed a bill by law in order to boost the economy. Today it is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in US and in Canada( Jour de l'Action de grâce) is celebrated on the second Monday of October (Columbus day in US) since 1957 the Parliament changed it because it clashed with Remembrance Day in the same week in November.