Video: Irregular Gatherings at Historical Thanksgivings

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Learn how unusual Thanksgiving was at first for in this free holiday origins video from an American history authority and Turkey Day expert.

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Video Transcript

So we now had the first big Thanksgiving in 1621. The Pilgrims celebrated it, there was tons of food, there was a big three day food fest and then from then on, we always celebrated Thanksgiving, right? Wrong! That is not at all what happened. There was no Thanksgiving in 1622, at least not anything really observed in the New England colonies. In 1623 there was another type of Thanksgiving. There was a big drought hitting the Plymouth Rock colony and at the last minute, people prayed and the rains opened up and the drought was broken and there was a good harvest and they also had another Thanksgiving celebration, 1623. You then have to fast forward over fifty years to 1677 when there was the next big Thanksgiving in New England. And that was to celebrate a recent massacring of the heaven native Americans, very different than what had preceded that event by fifty years. So there was not a whole lot of celebration across different cultures at that time. And then after that, on again off again Thanksgiving celebrations. It was not a yearly occurrence or a yearly something that people looked forward to, getting together with family and friends. It was very irregular going on into the seventeenth and on through most of the eighteenth century.

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Irregular Gatherings at Historical Thanksgivings

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