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Thanksgiving Day
Observed by	Canada, United States
Type	National
Date	2nd Monday in October (Canada); 4th Thursday in November (U.S.)
2009 date	October 12, 2009 (Canada);; November 26, 2009 (U.S.)
2010 date	October 11, 2010 (Canada);; November 25, 2010 (U.S.)

For other uses, see Thanksgiving (disambiguation).

Thanksgiving Day is a harvest festival. Traditionally, it is a time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude in general. It is a holiday celebrated primarily in Canada and the United States. While perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday.

The date and location of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topic of modest contention. The traditional "first Thanksgiving" is the celebration that occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621. The Plymouth celebration occurred early in the history of what would become one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States. The celebration became an important part of the American myth by the 1800s.^{[citation needed]}. This Thanksgiving, modeled after celebrations that were commonplace in contemporary Europe, is generally regarded as America's first. Elementary school teacher Robyn Gioia has argued that the earliest attested "thanksgiving" celebration in what is now the United States was on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida^[1]^[2]. Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Thanksgiving dinner is held on this day, usually as a gathering of family members and friends.

Canada

Main article: Thanksgiving (Canada)

United States

Main article: Thanksgiving (United States)

Grenada

In Grenada there is a national holiday of Thanksgiving Day on 25 October. It is unrelated to holidays in Canada and the United States even though it bears the same name and occurs around the same time. It marks the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of the island in 1983 in response to the deposition and execution of Grenadan Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.^[3]

Netherlands

A Thanksgiving Day service is held in Hooglandse Kerk to commemorate the hospitality the Pilgrims received in Leiden on their way to the New World.^[4]

References

^ USA Today article reporting research into the purportedly first Thanksgiving in St. Augustine, FL
^ See also NYTimes article of Nov 25, 2008
^ Grenada Board of Tourism official website
^ "Dutch town". The World (radio program). http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/22856&answer=true. Retrieved 2008-11-28. "The Pilgrims arrived in Leiden in 1609, after fleeing religious persecution in England. Leiden welcomed them because it needed immigrants to help rebuild its textile industry, which had been devastated by a long revolt against Spain. Here, the Pilgrims were allowed to worship as they wanted, and they even published their arguments calling for the separation of church and state. Jeremy Bangs directs the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum. He says the Pilgrims quickly adopted several Dutch customs, like civil marriage and Thanksgiving."

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Thanksgiving

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thanksgiving

[0] USA Today article reporting research into the purportedly first Thanksgiving in St. Augustine, FL

[1] See also NYTimes article of Nov 25, 2008

[2] Grenada Board of Tourism official website

[3] "Dutch town". The World (radio program). http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/22856&answer=true. Retrieved 2008-11-28. "The Pilgrims arrived in Leiden in 1609, after fleeing religious persecution in England. Leiden welcomed them because it needed immigrants to help rebuild its textile industry, which had been devastated by a long revolt against Spain. Here, the Pilgrims were allowed to worship as they wanted, and they even published their arguments calling for the separation of church and state. Jeremy Bangs directs the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum. He says the Pilgrims quickly adopted several Dutch customs, like civil marriage and Thanksgiving."

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