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President JFK's Thanksgiving proclamation of 1962, giving sole credit for creation of the holiday to MA's Pilgrims, was inaccurate. VA settlers formally offered prayers of thanks at Berkeley Plantation in 1619, two years before the Pilgrims' feast. The establishment of a religious holiday of thanksgiving prayers is compared to the celebratory harvest festival of New England. George Washington was the first President to declare Thursday, Nov. 26, to be a day of prayer and giving thanks in 1789.
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