This Thanksgiving, we should set aside time not only for prayer as a grateful nation, a practice George Washington established in 1789 and Abraham Lincoln renewed during the Civil War, but to ...

In response to a joint request by both Houses of Congress, on Oct. 3, 1789, President George Washington proclaimed Nov. 26, 1789, as a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer” devoted to “the ...

He urged the people of the United States to celebrate “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” But Washington believed that particular Thanksgiving in 1789 was a crucial occasion.

This year, another American Founder joins the lineup: Here is George Washington’s proclamation, issued 74 years (to the day) before Lincoln’s. Congressional representatives asked Washington to ...

Today is Thanksgiving, a day of family, feasting and football. But according to George Washington, who founded the holiday seven months after he took office, the primary purpose of the holiday is ...

On Nov. 26, 1789, President George Washington proclaimed the day “a day for thanksgiving and prayer.” The United States, under the U.S. Constitution, was not even a year old at this point, and ...

The first Thanksgiving in the New World was celebrated in 1621, nearly a year after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1789, George Washington became the first of m… ...

On Nov. 26, 1789, George Washington used Thanksgiving to call on the people he now led to hold their new country together . ... On Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, George Washington woke early.

He urged the people of the United States to celebrate “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” But Washington believed that particular Thanksgiving in 1789 was a crucial occasion.

[Editor’s note: On Oct. 3, 1789, little more than five months after being sworn in as the nation’s first president, George Washington issued a proclamation calling for America’s first official ...

President George Washington aimed to unify the country with his first Thanksgiving message. Getty Images Maurizio Valsania, Università di Torino On Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, George Washington woke ...