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N0KFQ > TODAY 03.10.15 16:31l 47 Lines 2030 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 68941_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Oct 3
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<I0OJJ<N6RME<N0KFQ
Sent: 151003/1430Z 68941@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.64
1863
Lincoln proclaims official Thanksgiving holiday
On this day in 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union
Army victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announces
that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday
on November 26, 1863.
The speech, which was actually written by Secretary of State
William Seward, declared that the fourth Thursday of every
November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday
of Thanksgiving. This announcement harkened back to when George
Washington was in his first term as the first president in 1789
and the young American nation had only a few years earlier
emerged from the American Revolution. At that time, George
Washington called for an official celebratory "day of public
thanksgiving and prayer." While Congress overwhelmingly agreed to
Washington's suggestion, the holiday did not yet become an annual
event.
Thomas Jefferson, the third president, felt that public
demonstrations of piety to a higher power, like that celebrated
at Thanksgiving, were inappropriate in a nation based in part on
the separation of church and state. Subsequent presidents agreed
with him. In fact, no official Thanksgiving proclamation was
issued by any president between 1815 and the day Lincoln took the
opportunity to thank the Union Army and God for a shift in the
country's fortunes on this day in 1863.
The fourth Thursday of November remained the annual day of
Thanksgiving from 1863 until 1939. Then, at the tail-end of the
Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoping to boost the
economy by providing shoppers and merchants a few extra days to
conduct business between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays,
moved Thanksgiving to November's third Thursday. In 1941,
however, Roosevelt bowed to Congress' insistence that the fourth
Thursday of November be re-set permanently, without alteration,
as the official Thanksgiving holiday.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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