Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! I thought I’d share a little about some of the history of the holiday!

On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Thanksgiving set the precedent for our country’s national day of Thanksgiving. It proclaims the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” Prior to that, different states had been celebrating Thanksgiving on different days.

Lincoln, born in Kentucky, grew up in a poor family and was mostly self-educated, having only attended school for a year. He became a country lawyer before getting involved in politics in the 1830’s. In 1860, he was elected the 16th President of the United States, entering office in 1861. Our country was still in the midst of the Civil War when the first Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday was celebrated.

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