Today was the day that President Franklin D Roosevelt signed a bill that formerly established that every next to last Thursday in November would be celebrated as Thanksgiving Day. Before this it was generally the last Thursday in November.

The earliest Thanksgiving Day celebration was probably in 1621. William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Plantation, invited local Indians to join the settlers in a three day festival to celebrate the bounty of the season.

In the late 19th century, Abraham Lincoln declared that Thanksgiving should fall on the last Thursday of November. It was then that Thanksgiving became a national holiday throughout the USA.