In the first Presidential Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, George Washington noted the request of Congress for “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God,” and assigned November 26, 1789, “to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”
Years later, Thanksgiving would become an annual tradition in the United States, with the first of these national celebrations taking place in the autumn of 1863, during the throes of the Civil War. At that time, Abraham Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving Day Proclamation urging that, amidst giving thanks for bountiful blessings, fellow citizens “commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation.”
Ever since, in America it has been a common practice for friends and family to gather together on Thanksgiving to share a meal in gratitude to God and in commemoration of the many sacrifices made by heroes and heroines, past and present, who have helped to establish and defend the freedoms we enjoy. And a number of other countries around the world have similar observances.
