False. It was President Abraham Lincoln during the USA Civil War Between the States, (in 1863), who made Thanksgiving a national holiday in the USA.
both
Abe Lincoln
NOPE, Canadian Thanksgiving was first though.
October 3, 1789 was the date on which first U.S. President George Washington [February 22, 1732-December 14, 1799] proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving. He identified that day as November 26th. The holiday continued to be observed, but not on a national level. Its observance tended to be in New England. But the date varied widely, from sometime in October to sometime in January.
George Washington, i beleive.
President George Washington proclaimed Thursday, November 26, 1789 to be "a day of public thanksgiving and prayer". He proclaimed a second Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, February 19, 1795. It wasn't until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November of every year to be "a day of Thanksgiving". In June 1870 it legally became a paid holiday for federal employees working within the District of Columbia. In 1885 the law was expanded to apply to federal employees nationwide. In 1939 and 1940, in order to help retail businesses by making the Christmas shopping season longer, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Thanksgiving Day to be the third Thursday of November. So many people protested the change in the Thanksgiving tradition that, as a compromise, Congress passed a bill making the fourth Thursday of November Thanksgiving Day. President Roosevelt signed the bill into law on December 26, 1941, and it remains in effect to this day.
George Washington declared the first national day of Thanksgiving, but that was a one-time thing. Abraham Lincoln restarted it. It was originally the last Thursday in November, but in 1941, it officially became the fourth Thursday in November (sometimes November has five Thursdays). And technically, it still has to be proclaimed by the President every year, although that is a given.
In the middle of the US Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, prompted by a series of editorials written by Sarah Hale, proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November 1863. It has been celebrated anually since. However President George Washington was the first President to issue a Proclamation that declared a National Day of Thanksgiving on October 3, 1789.
George Washington declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1789. However, the Continental Congress (president John Hanson) made the first actual national proclamation on March 16, 1776. The following year, a national day of prayer and thanksgiving was observed on December 16, 1777. The date of Thursday, November 26, 1789 was the date used by Washington, following the precedent of Thursday, November 28, 1782. The annual observance was established by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, and observed each year since then.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving in 1863. Franklin Roosevelt got Congress to make Thanksgiving a federal holiday in 1941. FDR had the day moved up a week wnenever November had 5 Thursdays.[[Which president legalized thanksgiving&action=edit|]] [Discuss:Which_president_legalized_thanksgiving ] [javascript:getUpdates(1); ]Read more: [[Which president legalized thanksgiving#ixzz16ANW45R1|http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_president_legalized_thanksgiving#ixzz16ANW45R1]]
Why Thursday? Because President Washington wanted it that way. Back in 1789, President George Washington declared Thursday, November 26, to be a national holiday of Thanksgiving. This was the first official American Thanksgiving to be held as a holiday. Thanksgiving was then held every year on the last Thursday of November. (Before that, different colonies, then states, held thanksgiving when they wanted.) In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that Thanksgiving would be the second-to-last Thursday of November rather than the last. Why? Because that gave more shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.