Re: OT Thanksgiving was Re: Thoughts on Tarsyanian verbs

Carsten Becker wrote:
> Well, I guess you're right. Someone else from the list sent me a side-note
> offlist and explained me why they are having Thanksgiving in Northern
> America. The motivation is similar (thanking God for food), but the article
> "Erntedankfest" at de.wikipedia.org says that both "versions" of this
> holiday are not directly related. So we did not "import" the US' Thanksgiving.
Actually, the modern Thanksgiving is unrelated to the Pilgrims'
Thanksgiving, though it did borrow some customs.

According to the en.wikipedia's article

Thanksgiving is closely related to harvest festivals that had long been
a traditional holiday in much of Europe. The first North American
celebration of these festivals by Europeans was held in Newfoundland by
the Frobisher Expedition in 1578. Another event claiming to be the first
Thanksgiving occurred on December 4, 1619 when 38 colonists from
Berkeley Parish in England disembarked in Virginia and gave thanks to
God. Prior to this, there was also a thanksgiving feast celebrated on
September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine when Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed
he and his men shared a feast with the natives.

Most people recognize the first Thanksgiving as taking place on an
unremembered date, sometime in the autumn of 1621, when the Pilgrims
held a three-day feast to celebrate the bountiful harvest they reaped
following their first winter in North America.
...
The Pilgrims did not hold Thanksgiving again until 1623, when it
followed a drought, prayers for rain and a subsequent rain shower.
Irregular Thanksgivings continued after favorable events and days of
fasting after unfavorable ones. Gradually an annual Thanksgiving after
the harvest developed in the mid-17th century. This did not occur on any
set day or necessarily on the same day in different colonies.
...
The Pilgrims set apart a day for thanksgiving at Plymouth immediately
after their first harvest, in 1621; the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the
first time in 1630, and frequently thereafter until about 1680, when it
became an annual festival in that colony; and Connecticut as early as
1639 and annually after 1647, except in 1675. The Dutch in New
Netherland appointed a day for giving thanks in 1644 and occasionally
thereafter.

During the American Revolutionary War the Continental Congress appointed
one or more thanksgiving days each year, except in 1777, each time
recommending to the executives of the various states the observance of
these days in their states.

George Washington, leader of the revolutionary forces in the American
Revolutionary War, proclaimed a Thanksgiving in December 1777 as a
victory celebration honoring the defeat of the British at Saratoga. The
Continental Congress proclaimed annual December Thanksgivings from 1777
to 1783, except in 1782.
...
One was annually appointed by the governor of New York from 1817. In
some of the Southern States there was opposition to the observance of
such a day on the ground that it was a relic of Puritanic bigotry, but
by 1858 proclamations appointing a day of thanksgiving were issued by
the governors of 25 states and two Territories.

In the middle of the Civil War, prompted by a series of editorials
written by Sarah Josepha Hale, the last of which appeared in the
September 1863 issue of Godey's Lady's Book, President Abraham Lincoln
proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the final
Thursday in November 1863:
...
Since 1863, Thanksgiving has been observed annually in the United States.
</quote>

So, it seems that it's actually a gradual compillation of several
similar festivals, with the current version established by Lincoln
during the Civil War