Thanksgiving is an annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year.

Colonists in New England and Canada regularly observed “thanksgivings,” days of prayer for such blessings as safe journeys, military victories, or abundant harvests. Americans model their holiday on a 1621 harvest feast shared between English colonists and the Wampanoag. The Wampanoag were a loose confederation of several tribes in the 17th century, but today Wampanoag people encompass five officially recognized tribes.
Canadians trace their earliest thanksgiving to 1578, when English explorer Martin Frobisher and his crew had the first Canadian Thanksgiving in 1578 either on land at Frobisher Bay, in present day Nunavut, or onboard a ship anchored there. Thanksgiving has been officially celebrated as an annual holiday in Canada since November 6, 1879

In the United States, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, as specified in a joint resolution passed by Congress in 1941 and a proclamation issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942. Since 1957, Thanksgiving Day has been celebrated in Canada on the second Monday in October.

In both Canada and America, family and friends gather for a feast on Thanksgiving. Traditional fare in America often includes turkey, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. Parades and football games also have long associations with the holiday.