MotelPrisoner
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How it all began:
Though several countries around the world have their own Thanksgiving holidays, the American version we celebrate today came about in 1621, when Pilgrims in what is now Plymouth, Mass., sat down with he king and members of the Wampanoag tribe to mark a successful joint harvest that saved the colonists from starvation. Maize and turkey were on the menu, and still grace most Thanksgiving tables today -- but other items the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag feasted on -- other wild fowl, eels, venison, cod, and bass -- were phased out in the modern take on the holiday meal. The Pilgrims celebrated other Thanksgivings in the years after, but they were usually ways to celebrate good harvests or military victories, and not part of a regularly scheduled tradition.
Thanksgiving wasn't celebrated as a national holiday until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday of November to be "a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens" and asked Americans, wherever they were, to use the time to "fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union." Presidents after Lincoln followed his example and began calling for a day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of that month each year, though it was up to the states to actually make them holidays.
In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt mixed things up by declaring the second-to-last Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving, as opposed to the last Thursday, hoping that the extended pre-Christmas shopping season would help boost the moribund economy. Republicans were outraged, and saw it as a deliberate affront by a Democratic president to the memory of a Republican one. Across the nation, football-game schedules were disrupted, and critics derided the new date as "Franksgiving." States were evenly split on which day to celebrate as Thanksgiving -- Texas simply gave up and took both Thursdays off.
In 1941, Congress compromised and officially made Thanksgiving a federal holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, meaning it was sometimes the last Thursday of the month and sometimes the next-to-last.
Presidential Pardons:
Though there's at least one apocryphal story that Abraham Lincoln was the first president to pardon a turkey in 1864 (at the behest of his son Tad, who had made it a pet), the contemporary tradition of the president of the U.S. "pardoning" a turkey arguably began in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy remarked that he wasn't going to eat the turkey but that "We'll just keep him." Newspapers pounced on the remark as a pardon, though it was really just an off-the-cuff joke; his successors happily feasted on turkey meat.
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan revived the idea when -- trying to draw attention away journalists' questions about whether he'd pardon figures involved in the Iran-Contra scandal -- he joked about using his presidential pardon instead to spare the life of that evening's potential supper.
In 1989, the tradition of the Thanksgiving turkey pardon became official when President George H. W. Bush spared the life of the bird of the day, which had obviously won the hearts of schoolchildren who happened to be present at the White House Thanksgiving press conference.
"Our special guest seems understandably nervous, but let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table, not this guy," Bush said. "He's granted a presidential pardon as of right now."
The White House turkey has been officially pardoned every year since, and lives out the rest of its life on a farm, free from fear of becoming someone's leftovers.
Black Friday:
The Friday after Thanksgiving being a bonanza shopping day has been around since at least the 1960s in Philadelphia, where cops supposedly gave it the nickname because of the headaches the crowds of deal-crazy consumers gave them. Another theory for the name, probably apocryphal, is that Black Friday (also the nickname for several, more dire, dates in history) was thus named because it was the day retailers' account books went from red to black. In reality, it's probably only been the busiest shopping day of the year for a few years now.
And there you have it...
Though several countries around the world have their own Thanksgiving holidays, the American version we celebrate today came about in 1621, when Pilgrims in what is now Plymouth, Mass., sat down with he king and members of the Wampanoag tribe to mark a successful joint harvest that saved the colonists from starvation. Maize and turkey were on the menu, and still grace most Thanksgiving tables today -- but other items the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag feasted on -- other wild fowl, eels, venison, cod, and bass -- were phased out in the modern take on the holiday meal. The Pilgrims celebrated other Thanksgivings in the years after, but they were usually ways to celebrate good harvests or military victories, and not part of a regularly scheduled tradition.
Thanksgiving wasn't celebrated as a national holiday until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday of November to be "a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens" and asked Americans, wherever they were, to use the time to "fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union." Presidents after Lincoln followed his example and began calling for a day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of that month each year, though it was up to the states to actually make them holidays.
In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt mixed things up by declaring the second-to-last Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving, as opposed to the last Thursday, hoping that the extended pre-Christmas shopping season would help boost the moribund economy. Republicans were outraged, and saw it as a deliberate affront by a Democratic president to the memory of a Republican one. Across the nation, football-game schedules were disrupted, and critics derided the new date as "Franksgiving." States were evenly split on which day to celebrate as Thanksgiving -- Texas simply gave up and took both Thursdays off.
In 1941, Congress compromised and officially made Thanksgiving a federal holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, meaning it was sometimes the last Thursday of the month and sometimes the next-to-last.
Presidential Pardons:
Though there's at least one apocryphal story that Abraham Lincoln was the first president to pardon a turkey in 1864 (at the behest of his son Tad, who had made it a pet), the contemporary tradition of the president of the U.S. "pardoning" a turkey arguably began in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy remarked that he wasn't going to eat the turkey but that "We'll just keep him." Newspapers pounced on the remark as a pardon, though it was really just an off-the-cuff joke; his successors happily feasted on turkey meat.
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan revived the idea when -- trying to draw attention away journalists' questions about whether he'd pardon figures involved in the Iran-Contra scandal -- he joked about using his presidential pardon instead to spare the life of that evening's potential supper.
In 1989, the tradition of the Thanksgiving turkey pardon became official when President George H. W. Bush spared the life of the bird of the day, which had obviously won the hearts of schoolchildren who happened to be present at the White House Thanksgiving press conference.
"Our special guest seems understandably nervous, but let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table, not this guy," Bush said. "He's granted a presidential pardon as of right now."
The White House turkey has been officially pardoned every year since, and lives out the rest of its life on a farm, free from fear of becoming someone's leftovers.
Black Friday:
The Friday after Thanksgiving being a bonanza shopping day has been around since at least the 1960s in Philadelphia, where cops supposedly gave it the nickname because of the headaches the crowds of deal-crazy consumers gave them. Another theory for the name, probably apocryphal, is that Black Friday (also the nickname for several, more dire, dates in history) was thus named because it was the day retailers' account books went from red to black. In reality, it's probably only been the busiest shopping day of the year for a few years now.
And there you have it...
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