In the USA, Thanksgiving
Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.
The first Thanksgiving in the USA was a feast in 1620 shared by the Pilgrims (who had
recently settled Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts) and the Wampanoag Indians,
who shared their corn 
, pumpkin
and wild turkeys
This first feast was not repeated until more than ten years later.
Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln.
O
n Sept. 6, 1620 the Pilgrims left Plymouth (England) for the New World on a ship called the Mayflower. They were 110 men, women and children. The voyage took 65 days. When they arrived, the Pilgrims were afraid of the local Native American Indians. But the Patuxets were a peaceful group and did not do anything bad to them.
The
first winter was very hard for the Pilgrims: of the 110 Pilgrims who left England, only 50
survived the first winter. But on March 16, 1621, an Indian walked into the settlement.
His name was Samoset. He soon returned with another Indian named Squanto,
who could speak English and taught the Pilgrims how to plant Indian corn. The
harvest in October was very successful and the Pilgrims had enough food for the winter. It
was time to celebrate.
Nowadays, Thanksgiving Day in America is a time to offer thanks, of family reunions and holiday meals. A time of turkeys, pumpkin pie and Indian corn. A time of holiday parades, football games on TV and giant balloons.
Rewritten by Mª Teresa López Mezquita for our students in 4º ESO
Webmaster Isabel Pérez Torres