為了感謝上帝賜予的'大豐收，移民們決定舉行一次盛大的慶祝活動，同時也是為了感謝印地安人的熱心幫助。於是他們在1621年的11月下旬的一個星期四，與邀請來的曾幫助過他們的印地安人一起舉行了一個慶祝活動。這就是第一次感恩節。
感恩節英文由來【1】
Thanksgiving began with the first European settlers in America. They gathered their crops, celebrated and gave thanks for the food.
Tradition says Pilgrim settlers from England celebrated the first thanksgiving in sixteen twenty-one. There is evidence that settlers in other parts of America held earlier thanksgiving celebrations. But the Pilgrims' thanksgiving story is the most popular.
The Pilgrims were religious dissidents who fled oppression in England. They went first to the Netherlands. Then they left that country to establish a colony in North America. The Pilgrims landed in sixteen twenty in what later became known as Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean was difficult. Their first months in America were difficult, too. About one hundred Pilgrims landed just as autumn was turning to winter. During the cold months that followed, about half of them died.
感恩節英文由來【2】
Thanksgiving which falls on the fourth Thursday of November, is one of the biggest American holidays.
This holiday started in the early 1600's after settlers arrived in America.
These people who came from Europe didn't know how to survive in the wild new country.
Luckily, they met some friendly American Indians, who showed them how to hunt turkeys and grow corn.
In the fall, after the harvest, the settlers had a great feast. They invited the Indians to thank them for their help. Today the tradition continues.
On Thanksgiving Day, Americans invite their friends over for a turkey dinner and give thanks for what they have.
【感恩節相關介紹】
TV dinner (冰凍簡餐)
In 1953, someone at Swanson severely overestimated the amount of turkey Americans would consume that Thanksgiving.
With 260 tons of frozen birds to get rid of, a company salesman named Gerry Thomas ordered 5,000 aluminum trays, recruited an assembly line of women armed with spatulas and ice-cream scoops and began creating mini-feasts of turkey, corn-bread dressing, peas and sweet potatoes — creating the first-ever TV as later said he got the idea from neatly packaged airplane food.
Football 橄欖球賽
Thanksgiving is ruled by two very powerful f-words: "food" and "football."
Nearly as old as the sport itself, the tradition of watching football on Thanksgiving began in 1876, when the newly formed American Intercollegiate Football Association held its first championship game.
Less than a decade later, more than 5,000 club, college and high school football teams held games on Thanksgiving, with match-ups between Princeton and Yale drawing more than 40,000 fans out from their dining rooms. 1934 marked the first NFL game held on Thanksgiving when the Detroit Lions took on the Chicago Bears.
The Lions have played on Thanksgiving ever since — except, of course, when the team was called away to serve during World War II.
Franklin D. Roosevelt 福蘭克林·D·羅斯福
FDR learned the hard way not to mess with some traditions. In 1939, the President declared that Americans should celebrate the annual feast one week early, hoping the decision would spur retail sales during the Great Depression. But Americans did not react kindly to the New Deal meal.
Some took to the streets while others took to name-calling; the mayor of Atlantic City solved the controversy by declaring his residents would simply enjoy two meals — Thanksgiving and "Franksgiving."
After two years of squabbling (or gobbling, as it were), Congress adopted a resolution in 1941 setting the fourth Thursday of November as the legal holiday.
"Mary Had a Little Lamb" 瑪麗有隻小羊羔
The woman who wrote the classic nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb" also played an integral role in making Thanksgiving a national holiday.
After a 17-year letter-writing campaign, magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale finally convinced President Abraham Lincoln to issue an 1863 decree recognizing the historic tradition.
