718.779.1430
Plaza College
# 202, 74-09 37th Ave, Jackson Heights, NY 11372
www.plazacollege.edu (718) 779-1430
*** Press Release ***
Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November.
The modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition in the United States traces its origins to a 1621 celebration at Plymouth in Massachusetts, when the Plymouth colonists (Pilgrims) and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest. The first Plymouth feast is today acknowledged as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies (History.com).
Initially, the Plymouth colony did not have enough food to feed half of the 102 colonists that arrived on the Mayflower. Squanto and the Wampanoag Indian Tribe taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants (History.com).
Even though the first thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621, it wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November (History.com).
Today, friends and family surrounding a table filled with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie mark Thanksgiving celebrations. Most of these specialties were not available to the Pilgrims and Indians, but the evident theme of “giving thanks” for what you have, including the people around you and the food on your table, are still prevalent.
Plaza College would like to wish everyone a Happy & Healthy Thanksgiving.
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