Georgia's Class

Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated in the USA and Canada as a day for families and friends to get together for a special meal. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. The meal often includes a turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, pumpkin pie, and vegetables. Thanksgiving Day is a time for many people to give thanks for what they have. Thanksgiving Day parades are also held in some cities and towns. But how did this holiday start?

A bit of history

Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving took place in 1621, in Plymouth, Massachussets, where the European colonists (often called ‘Pilgrims’) organised a feast to thank the local Indians for helping them produce their first successful corn harvest. For more than two centuries, different days of thanksgiving were celebrated by different colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, during the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held on the fourth Thursday of November.

If you want to know more about the history of the holiday, watch this funny video of Plymouth Rock (where the European colonists landed in 1960) telling the whole story!

Sources:

http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

If someone asked you to name a famous philhellene, the first name that would come to your mind would be that of Lord Byron. George Gordon Byron, one of the greatest British Romantic Poets, is also revered as a national hero by Greek people. On 4th August 1823, he arrives at Kefalonia, in the Ionian Islands, to join the Greek revolutionaries in their war of independence from the Ottoman Empire. A few months later, on 19th April 1824, he dies of fever in Missolonghi. Two months before his death, on his 36th birthday, he composes his last poem…

January 22nd, Missolonghi

On this Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year

‘Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

Since others it hath ceased to move:

Yet though I cannot be beloved,

Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of Love are gone;

The worm—the canker, and the grief

Are mine alone!

The fire that on my bosom preys

Is lone as some Volcanic Isle;

No torch is kindled at its blaze

A funeral pile.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care,

The exalted portion of the pain

And power of Love I cannot share,

But wear the chain.

But ’tis not thus—and ’tis not here

Such thoughts should shake my Soul, nor now,

Where Glory decks the hero’s bier,

Or binds his brow.

The Sword, the Banner, and the Field,

Glory and Greece around us see!

The Spartan borne upon his shield

Was not more free.

Awake (not Greece—she is awake!)

Awake, my Spirit! Think through whom

Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake

And then strike home!

Tread those reviving passions down

Unworthy Manhood—unto thee

Indifferent should the smile or frown

Of beauty be.

If thou regret’st thy Youth, why live?

The land of honourable Death

Is here:—up to the Field, and give

Away thy breath!

Seek out—less often sought than found—

A Soldier’s Grave, for thee the best;

Then look around, and choose thy Ground,

And take thy rest.

Missolonghi, 1824

Source: The Longman Anthology of Poetry (2006)

For a Greek translation of the poem click here.

Listen to the poem here:

Κατηγορία: History

How did Thanksgiving start?

Lord Byron’s last poem: Missolonghi