George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by a U.S. president in 1789.
Washington signed the proclamation on October 3, 1789, at the request of Congress. It designated Thursday, November 26, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. The proclamation was made in New York City, where the new federal government was temporarily based.
This event is often confused with an earlier national Thanksgiving observance. In 1777, during the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress recommended a national day of thanksgiving for December 18. That action came from the revolutionary Congress, not from a president of the United States.
Washington’s proclamation reflected the new constitutional government’s effort to establish civic observances while acknowledging religious language common in public documents of the period. Later presidents issued additional thanksgiving proclamations, but the modern federal holiday was not fixed on its current annual schedule until much later.