(The Center Square) – As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving this year, many believe the first thanksgiving was held in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. However, the first Thanksgiving celebration was held two decades earlier in an area south of El Paso in 1598, historians in Texas argue.
The first national Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by the Continental Congress two years after independence in 1778. President George Washington designated Thursday, November 26, 1789, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, in the first presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation.
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