Who issued the United States’ first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789?

George Washington issued the United States’ first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789.

Washington issued the proclamation in New York City on October 3, 1789, after Congress requested that he recommend a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. He designated Thursday, November 26, 1789, for the observance. The proclamation expressed gratitude for the successful establishment of the new federal government and for what it described as national blessings.

This was not the first thanksgiving observance in territory that became the United States. European colonists and Indigenous peoples had held thanksgiving ceremonies earlier, and the Second Continental Congress issued a national thanksgiving proclamation in 1777 during the Revolutionary War.

Washington’s proclamation also did not create the modern federal Thanksgiving holiday. Abraham Lincoln later established a recurring national Thanksgiving observance during the Civil War in 1863. Congress eventually set Thanksgiving Day as the fourth Thursday of November in 1941.