From pilgrims to parades: the real story behind Thanksgiving

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00:00Think you know the true history of Thanksgiving?

00:02Let's rewind and find out.

00:04The first Thanksgiving we picture today comes from one eyewitness,

00:08Edward Winslow, a Mayflower passenger in 1621.

00:12Here's what actually happened.

00:14Plymouth colonists and about 90 Wampanoag Native Americans shared a three-day harvest gathering.

00:19The menu?

00:20Venison, shellfish, corn, and fowl.

00:22No pumpkin pie, no cranberry sauce, it wasn't even called Thanksgiving, it was just a harvest festival.

00:27It was the colonists' idea to throw a celebration of survival after their first brutal winter,

00:32inviting the Wampanoag to join in under a fragile peace treaty,

00:36one that later collapsed as colonists expanded and violence grew.

00:39Jump ahead 200 years.

00:41Sarah Josepha Hale, editor, activist, and writer of Mary Had a Little Lamb,

00:45was obsessed with the 1621 Harvest Fest and campaigned to make it a national holiday under the name Thanksgiving.

00:52A word originating about 100 years before the first Thanksgiving,

00:55with ties back to religious services of gratitude.

00:58She was one of the first to push the Pilgrims and Turkey story,

01:01which later became the version retold in schools and popular culture today.

01:05Why Turkey?

01:06Well, Hale argued the birds were big enough to feed a family,

01:09native to North America, and plentiful across the country.

01:12Now, while Turkey wasn't the star of the 1621 feast,

01:15her campaign helped make it the iconic dish we associate with the holiday today.

01:19In 1863, Abraham Lincoln, desperate for unity during the Civil War,

01:23made Thanksgiving official with Hale's ideas at the forefront,

01:27marking the first official American Thanksgiving as Thursday, November 26, 1863.

01:32By the 20th century, mass media, from magazines to parades, TV specials, and iconic art,

01:37reshaped Thanksgiving from a harvest celebration into more of a family-centered holiday.

01:42In 1939, to help retailers toward the end of the Great Depression,

01:45FDR moved Thanksgiving up a week to extend the holiday shopping season,

01:49a change critics called Franksgiving.

01:51After two years of confusion, Congress, in 1941,

01:54fixed the holiday permanently on the fourth Thursday of November.

01:58So, today's Thanksgiving carries many meanings,

02:00part harvest feast, Sarah Hale's vision, Lincoln's politics, football games, canned cranberries,

02:04and for many indigenous people, a day of mourning and reflection.

02:08It's a holiday built from layers of history, tradition, and memory.

02:11But we want to know how your family celebrates the holiday.

02:14Do you gather around the turkey and pies, sit around watching football all day,

02:17or choose not to celebrate at all?

02:19Let us know in the comments, follow us here for more,

02:21and from all of us here at Straight Arrow News, have a happy Thanksgiving.

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