Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is the most typical American holiday, first celebrated in 1621 by the Pilgrims Fathers.
The Pilgrim Fathers were a group of 102 people led by Puritans who sailed on the Mayflower from Europe to America in search for freedom of worship. They landed and settled in what is now Plymouth, in Massachusetts in December 1620.
At first life was very hard and more then half of them died during the winter, but those who survived founded the second colony in North America, the first being Jamestown in Virginia, founded in 1607.
The Pilgrim Fathers met Squanto, a friendly Native American, who helped them make friends with the local tribes and taught them how to grow crops. From their new friends the Pilgrim Fathers also learned how to hunt animals and make maple syrup.
At the end of the summer they harvested a very rich crop and the Governor proclaimed a thanksgiving day to the Lord.
The Pilgrim Fathers had a feast and invited their Native American friends; they roasted turkeys, geese and corn, baked hoe cakes and made pop corn.
In more recent times, Thanksgiving was first proclaimed national holiday in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, who also fixed the date on the final Thursday of November. In 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt changed the date to the fourth Thursday of November and proclaimed Thanksgiving Day a federal holiday.
Today American families celebrate Thanksgiving with a dinner in which the main dishes are roast turkey, corn and pumpkin pie.