The history of Thanksgiving in America

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President George W. Bush visits the Thanksgiving Shrine in Virginia in 2007

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. As we gather to celebrate with family and friends, let me offer a short history lesson on the holiday origins in America.

In the fall of 1619 the Margaret set sail from Bristol, England on a roughly two-month voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Captain John Woodliffe would bring his ship with 38 settlers safely to what was known as Berkeley Hundred on December 4.

Berkeley Hundred was a land grant from the Virginia Company of London, an English stock company formed by King James I in order to fund the establishment of colonial settlements in America.

The Berkeley Hundred land grant went to a group of five men, including John Smyth, who became the official historian of the group. Over the next two decades he collected documents relating to the settlement of what would be known as "Virginia", and these still survive today.

The land grant was for some eight thousand acres along the James River a few miles west of Jamestown, which itself had been the first British colony in the New World just a few years earlier.

The proprietors of the Virginia Company had directed in their granting of the land charter that "the day of our ships arrival...shall be yearly and perpetually kept as a day of Thanksgiving." The settlers of the Margaret did indeed keep that celebration, doing so more than two years prior to the popularly remembered landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Over the hundreds of years since, there have been many disputes as to the official beginnings of this holiday which has become formally known as Thanksgiving Day here in America. Most of those disputes have been sources of regional pride battles between Virginia and the New England area.

When he became the first President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed that Thursday, November 26, 1789 was an official "...day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God."

It was from this Washington proclamation that most formal Thanksgiving celebrations were celebrated on the final Thursday in November. However, it was not an official national holiday. 

Following decades of lobbying by schoolteacher and author Sara Hale of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" fame, President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 called for such an official Thanksgiving Day holiday on the last Thursday in November. However, the rancor of the Civil War caused the celebration to become delayed until the 1870's.

The United States would then celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November until the early days of World War II. On December 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law a joint congressional resolution moving the official celebration to the fourth Thursday in November. 

Book Review: "Killing Jesus"

A few months ago, I finished reading Bill O'Reilly's outstanding work "Killing Lincoln" about the assassination of the 16th President of the United States and the events surrounding and leading up to that event.

The book was so well written and informative that it inspired me to purchase for my Kindle his other two similar books: "Killing Kennedy", about the assassination of our 35th President of the US, and "Killing Jesus", about the events surrounding our Lord's death.

I held off actually reading "Killing Jesus" until this time of year, the time surrounding those actual events. Today is Holy Thursday, when Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Tomorrow is Good Friday, when he was nailed to a cross and died for our sins. And then, of course, Sunday is Easter, when he rose again.

But O'Reilly does the subject a most honorable turn. Despite his own Roman Catholic upbringing, and that of his co-writer, Martin Dugard, he does not approach the matter of Jesus' death, and all of the events leading up to that event, from a religious or spiritual standpoint. Instead, as with Lincoln and Kennedy, he takes a purely historical look at the events.

O'Reilly and Dugard have taken the telling of these types of important events, the untimely murder of the most important figures in history, and made them completely accessible at every level. They do this with an almost conversational tone to the story-telling, mixing in the necessary known and verifiable facts with other discernible information based on the times of the events.

The end result, in "Killing Jesus" (and "Killing Lincoln", for that matter) is a book that is well written, easily understood, and that stands on it's own as an important new resource for anyone that has any interest in the topic. And who can say that they have any interest in human history without being interested in Jesus?

How Long Will We "Never Forget"?

For the past 11 years on this date, we've all heard, spoke, typed a now familiar refrain: "Never Forget!"

What we must never forget, of course, are the attacks against our nation on September 11th, 2001 by radical Islamists bringing their war against western civilization right to our doorsteps.

Today, I heard a couple of different things that made me realize just how difficult a proposition that it is to actually "never forget" something, even something as big as 9/11.

First, on my drive in to work this morning, I was listening to a radio station when the usual cast of morning show hosts began to discuss the date, and to go over their memories of that Tuesday morning. Those of us who experienced it can remember clearly what an absolutely gorgeous, perfect morning it was - clear skies and comfortable temperatures. The kind of day you give thanks to the Lord for blessing us with.

Then everything changed, in a span of just 17 minutes between 8:46 and 9:03am, when those sons of Muhammad crashed a pair of hijacked airliners into each of the iconic Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on the waterfront of Manhattan island in New York City. Just over a half hour later, a 3rd airliner crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a 4th crashed into a field in Pennsylvania a half hour after that.

The United States of America was under attack on our own shores for the first time in 60 years, the first time since World War II, when the Japanese decimated the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The ensuing chaos, the grounding of flights across the nation's skies, the collapse of the iconic towers, the growing numbers of people lost and killed. Firefighters, police officers, other rescue workers, and regular citizens putting their lives on the line to attempt and effect rescues.

How could anyone who lived through it ever forget all that.

Mormons Are Christians Too

I am a big fan of the HBO series "Big Love", but the fact of the matter is that it rarely shows what life is like for the average 'Mormon' family in America or around the world.

Led on by media depictions of fringe fundamentalists, 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' has gotten a bad name in some circles.

The fact is that the vast majority of the followers of this particular strand of Christianity are regular folks, including many famous people. Donny and Marie Osmond, stars of their own 1970's variety show as teens and now again thanks to recent appearances on the popular "Dancing With the Stars" program are part of perhaps the most famous American Mormon family.

Others who have either been raised in or converted to the faith include the man recently selected as the best 2nd baseman of the 2000's, Jeff Kent, who may one day be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. They also include the recent popular "American Idol' runner-up David Archuleta. And child actor turned adult drama TV star Rick Schroeder converted to the church of which his wife has been a lifelong member.

Perhaps the most important and influential member of the church is former Massachusetts Governor and leading Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. That importance comes from the fact of his legitimacy as a presidential candidate for a major political party.

During the 2008 election cycle, Romney ran a year-long campaign during which he won the Michigan and Nevada primaries among the 11 state primaries and caucuses that he won before dropping out in February of '08.

Shameful Che Shirts

Do you own, or have you owned and worn, or know someone who owns and has worn one of those allegedly 'cool' Che Guevara t-shirts? Do you know the reason that the shirt was being worn? Does the image on the shirt actually stand for something? Do you even know who Che Guevara really was?

The 'Che Guevara' t-shirt and image has become a symbol of sorts for all that is 'counter-cultural'. It is often meant as a protest symbol for those who feel that the 'little man' is being intentionally repressed in some way by government and/or business.

Wanting to help those who are less fortunate than we are is a noble sentiment. So is wanting to effect positive changes on a government or on a society that has become repressive or abusive to it's citizens. So what exactly does that have to do with America, the most free country in the history of the world? And why on earth would this man be an appropriate symbol for such protests anyway?

Ernesto 'Che' Gevara was born in 1928 in the South American country of Argentina to parents of mixed Spanish and Irish heritage. He was brought up in a very political and intellectual environment, and became a reader of the works and teachings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin at an early age.

In 1951 he took a year off before entering medical school in order to travel around South America on a motorcycle. During this trip he experienced first-hand the poverty in much of the land, and as a result ultimately wrote 'The Motorcycle Diaries' in regards to the trip. The book was subsequently made into a major release film in 2004.

As Guevara matured into manhood his views became more and more radical, and he eventually established the stated viewpoint that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify what he believed had become 'American imperialism' in Latin America.

American Political Revolution

It might be a bit too premature and over dramatic to use such terms, but it is not very difficult to make the case that what happened yesterday in Massachusetts is not some isolated election anomaly, but part of a burgeoning nationwide American political revolution.

Since Republican Henry Cabot Lodge was defeated by a young, upstart politician named John F. Kennedy in November of 1952 and left office in January of '53, at least one of Massachusetts' two U.S. Senators has been a Democrat. Two years after JFK was elected to the Presidency in 1960, his brother Ted Kennedy assumed the seat and owned it until his death last year.

The other Massachusetts Senatorial spot was won by Paul Tsongas for the Democrats in 1979. He was succeeded in 1985 by ultra-liberal John Kerry, and so the Democrats have had solid control of both U.S. Senatorial seats from Massachusetts for a generation.

In what has to be a stunning, bitter, ironic defeat for the Dems, the seat virtually owned by the Kennedy's and controlled by liberal interests for over a half century was lost yesterday.

In the special election held yesterday to replace the deceased 'Lion of the Senate', 50-year old Scott Brown was chosen by the previously reliable voters of Massachusetts to become the first Republican U.S. Senator to represent the commonwealth in three decades.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

At some point when I was a young boy, I learned that Bobby Kennedy and I had shared the same birthday. This was in the early 1970's, when I was about 11 or 12 years old. At that point I really had no idea who he was, or that he had an older brother who had been an American President who had also been assassinated.

I actually do have a childhood memory of the 1968 U.S. Presidential election. I have a memory of living on American Street in South Philly, and most of the families that lived around us rooting for the Democratic Party candidate, Hubert H. Humphrey, to win the election against Republican Party candidate Richard M. Nixon.

While I didn't understand politics on any level, I sensed a strong 'vibe' from the adults both in my own family and my friends' families that this was a big deal. It was important in some way. It mattered. And since my people were rooting for Humphrey, well then, so was little soon-to-be 7 years old Matt Veasey.

As history tells us, Humphrey lost. I actually remember having the feeling for the first time in my young life of disappointment. I had no clue how all of the people around me could possibly be rooting for someone and expecting them to win, and then having that person lose. It just did not compute in my young mind, and I was disheartened.

Of course, as I said, I was about to turn 7 years old in just a few weeks. Between my birthday coming up, then Christmas, and the early months of 2nd grade at Our Lady of Mount Carmel catholic school with the gorgeous Ms. Sarah Hillock as my teacher, there was plenty to distract me in short order and take my attention away from a silly election.

Despite having that impression of the 1968 election, I have no first-hand memory of the vital national events that had happened earlier that same year with first the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and then of Robert Kennedy. It was only by somehow randomly stumbling upon the fact of our shared birthday a few years later that I began my own infatuation with the Kennedy's that would last for decades.

Man on the Moon

Today is the 40th anniversary of what remains the greatest single technological feat that mankind has ever achieved. It was forty years ago today that American astronaut Neil Armstrong took that first step on to the surface of the moon, and uttered the iconic words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!"

Armstrong had become the first human being to ever set foot on another world outside of the earth.

On July 20th, 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 orbited the moon, after having left behind their home planet Earth just four days earlier. They were on the verge of the most spectacular achievement in man's history. Since our creation, man has looked up at the glowing disc in the night sky and dreamed.

At first those dreams involved the nature and the meaning of the object. Then the moon became an object of study, particularly as to it's relationship to Earth. Finally, it had become a destination.

Now, here were three Americans: Neil Armstrong, Ed 'Buzz' Aldrin, and Michael Collins, actually flying above that moon and preparing to land on it. Collins would draw the role of staying behind in order to pilot the command module 'Columbia', while Armstrong and Aldrin would actually descend in the 'Eagle' landing module to the moon's surface. They had the full resources of NASA, the National Aeronauticas and Space Administration, behind them, but they were very much on their own in so many ways.

The process to reach that point had been ongoing for decades. It began with the creation of rockets, and moved onward as those rockets were made larger and more powerful, capable of traveling further and further. Finally, man developed the technologies and the courage to enter outer space, that vast area outside of the protective atmosphere of the only planet we had ever known intimately.

President John F. Kennedy, slain by an assassin's bullet almost six years earlier, had set the ball in motion when on May 25th, 1961 he uttered the great challenge: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Six months later, I was born.

Turkey Tails

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in America, and at some point in the morning my wife Debbie will awake and unpack our turkey for the traditional dinner.

At some time tomorrow afternoon she is scheduled to slide the nice 17-pound Butterball out of our oven. I'll move into position with the electric carving knife, and peel off nice slices and pieces of white meat. Then I'll flip that bad boy over and go after the dark meat on the bottom.

We will then put the turkey out on our table with some veggies and fixings that will most definitely include mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, spinach, rolls, and gravy. Then we will join my daughter Kelly and her boyfriend Jay in digging in to the annual feast.

Ours will be a relatively small dinner, but there will be many around our town, region, and nation that will be much larger. Families will gather from far and near, taking days off from work, returning from school, going back home for the holiday.

At the vast majority of these dinner tables, the turkey will be the featured attraction. But why? Where did this all start? Why turkey and not roast beef, or pork chops, or spaghetti (no, my South Philly Italian friends, your pasta course does not count.)

Turkey is the main dish at Thanksgiving, what we all look forward to so much on this particular day that we don't have this dinner much, if at all, at other times during the year.

The turkey was a wild bird original to North America, native to the eastern United States and northern Mexico.