Thanksgiving

In the United States, Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks for the things one has at the end of the harvest season. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November; the period from Thanksgiving Day to New Year's Day is often collectively referred to as the "holiday season", and the holiday itself is often nicknamed Turkey Day.

History

Spaniards

The city of El Paso, Texas claims the first thanksgiving was held in what is now known as the United States, but it was not a harvest celebration. Spaniard Don Juan de Oñate ordered his expedition party to rest and conducted a mass celebration of thanksgiving on April 30, 1598.

1619 Thanksgiving, The Virginia Colony

1619 Thanksgiving at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia.On December 4, 1619, a group of 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred, comprised of about eight thousand acres (32 km²) on the north bank of the James River near Herring Creek in an area then known as Charles Cittie (sic) about 20 miles upstream from Jamestown, where the first permanent settlement of the Colony of Virginia was established on May 14, 1607.

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