Thanksgiving (16/11/2020)
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Liberia, and the sub-national entities Leiden, Norfolk Island, and the inhabited territories of the United States. It began as a day of giving thanks and sacrifice for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Similarly named festival holidays occur in Germany and Japan. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and Brazil, and around the same part of the year in other places. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.
Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are
common among almost all religions after harvests and at other times. The
Thanksgiving holiday's history in North America is rooted in English traditions
dating from the Protestant Reformation. It also has aspects of a harvest
festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs well before the
late-November date on which the modern Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated.
In the English tradition, days of thanksgiving and special
thanksgiving religious services became important during the English Reformation
in the reign of Henry VIII and in reaction to the large number of religious
holidays on the Catholic calendar. Before 1536 there were 95 Church holidays,
plus 52 Sundays, when people were required to attend church and forego work and
sometimes pay for expensive celebrations. The 1536 reforms reduced the number
of Church holidays to 27, but some Puritans wished to completely eliminate all
Church holidays, including Christmas and Easter. The holidays were to be replaced
by specially called Days of Fasting or Days of Thanksgiving, in response to
events that the Puritans viewed as acts of special providence. Unexpected
disasters or threats of judgement from on high called for Days of Fasting.
Special blessings, viewed as coming from God, called for Days of Thanksgiving.
For example, Days of Fasting were called on account of drought in 1611, floods
in 1613, and plagues in 1604 and 1622. Days of Thanksgiving were called
following the victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 and following the
deliverance of Queen Anne in 1705. An unusual annual Day of Thanksgiving began
in 1606 following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and developed into
Guy Fawkes Day on November 5.
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