Tradition says Pilgrim settlers from England celebrated the first thanksgiving in sixteen twenty-one. There is evidence that settlers in other parts of America held earlier thanksgiving celebrations. But the Pilgrims' thanksgiving story is the most popular.
The Pilgrims were religious dissidents who fled oppression in England. They went first to the Netherlands. Then they left that country to establish a colony in North America. The Pilgrims landed in sixteen twenty in what later became known as Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean was difficult. Their first months in America were difficult, too. About one hundred Pilgrims landed just as autumn was turning to winter. During the cold months that followed, about half of them died.
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks, traditionally to God, for the things one has at the end of the harvest season. In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October.
In the United States, certain kinds of food are traditionally served at Thanksgiving meals. First and foremost, turkey is usually the featured item on any Thanksgiving feast table (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes referred to as "Turkey Day"). Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, Indian corn, other fall vegetables, and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner. All of these primary dishes are actually native to the Americas or were introduced as a new food source to the Europeans when they arrived.
感恩節（Thanksgiving Day）是美國和加拿大共有的節日，原意是為了感謝上天賜與的好收成。在美國，自1941年起，感恩節是在每年11月的第四個星期四，並從這一天起將休假三天。像中國的春節一樣，在這一天，成千上萬的人們不管多忙，都要和自己的家人團聚。加拿大的感恩節則起始於1879年，是在每年10月第二個星期一，與美國的哥倫布日相同。
