Roosevelt establishes Thanksgiving date

October 31st marks two occasions now: Halloween, most obviously, and also the date after which Christmas sales can begin. Christmas has creeped up to almost four weeks before Thanksgiving, but during President Franklin Roosevelt’s time retailers still considered it bad form to mention Christmas, traditionally the biggest shopping holiday of the year, before Thanksgiving. During the depression, this was a problem: Thanksgiving, falling on the last Thursday of the year, gave shoppers only 20 days to finish their gift buying. FDR though – naively – that he could move the holiday a week up, and nobody would mind. They did.

On this day, November 26, in 1941, after FDR’s announcement of Thanksgiving’s move to the third Thursday of the month met with outcry in the streets and in public, Roosevelt relented, moving the holiday back and officially enshrining in law its celebration on the last Thursday of the month.

Thanksgiving arose from a tradition of harvest-season lectures started by American settlers – the most famous of which took place in Plymouth, as governor William Bradford invited local Indians to share in the feast. President Washington declared every November 26 to be Thanksgiving, and President Abraham Lincoln dedicated the holiday fall on the last Thursday of every month – a tradition adhered to, save for one blip during Roosevelt’s third term – thereafter.