Thanksgiving

Throughout the United States and Canada Thanksgiving Day is an annual (každoroční) legal holiday. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States and on the second Monday in October in Canada. There are also (také) Thanksgiving holidays celebrated every year in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Laos, Liberia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Grenada, and the Virgin Islands.
As celebrated in the United States, Thanksgiving was originally a harvest (žně, sklizeň) festival, one of the oldest and most widespread (rozšířený) of celebrations. The American holiday commemorates (připomínají) a harvest (žně, sklizeň) celebration held by the Pilgrims of Plymouth colony in 1621.
The Pilgrims had come ashore (na souš) from the Mayflower on Dec. 21, 1620 (see `Mayflower' ; Plymouth, Mass .). The winter had been heartbreaking (srdcervoucí). Only about half the original group had survived. Fortunately the harvest (žně, sklizeň) was good. There were 20 acres (8 hectares) of the strange Indian corn, for which the Indians had furnished seeds (zařídit semena). There were also barley (ječmen) and plenty (hojnost) of meat. Governor William Bradford sent four men to hunt (hon) for fowl (slepice). They returned with enough waterfowl and wild turkeys to last a week. Fishermen brought in cod (legrace) and bass (okoun). Indian hunters contributed five deer (lovci přinesli 5 jelenů). Ninety Indians, with their chief, Massasoit, feasted (hostil) with the colonists for three days.
The date of the feast (svátek) is not known. Bradford wrote in his history `Of Plimoth Plantation' that on September 18 some men set out (vyrazit) in a small boat for Massachusetts Bay to trade with the Indians. The harvest was gathered after they returned. The feast must have occurred before December 11. It was described in a letter written on that date by Edward Winslow.
There is also no record that the feast was called a "thanksgiving." Appointing (jmenováni) certain (jistý, spolehlivý) days for giving special thanks was a custom of the Puritans, but the first record of such a day was two years later in 1623. Then the Pilgrims "set apart a day of thanksgiving" for rain that ended a terrible drought.
President Abraham Lincoln. On Oct. 3, 1863, during the Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26 and he declared thangsgiving a holiday. He also named the last Thursday in November as the day to be observed every year.
Lincoln and every president who followed him proclaimed the holiday each year. The date chosen, with few exceptions, was the last Thursday in November. President Franklin D. Roosevelt thought Thanksgiving fell too close to Christmas. In 1939 he proclaimed the third Thursday Thanksgiving Day. Not all states complied, however. In December 1941 a joint resolution (rozhodnutí, řešení) of Congress specified the fourth Thursday in November (which is not always the last Thursday) as Thanksgiving Day.  
Dinner
First and foremost (především), turkey is usually the featured (rys) item on any Thanksgiving feast (svátek) table (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes referred to as "Turkey Day"). Stuffing, mashed (rozmačkané) potatoes with gravy (omáčka), sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, Indian corn, other fall vegetables, and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner. 
Česky
Thanksgiving, Den díkůvzdání se ve Spojených státech slaví čtvrtý listopadový čtvrtek, následující den je také volno. Ve Spojených státech se některé svátky slaví přesně na den (Den nezávislosti, Vánoce), jiné (Labor day, Martin Luther King) jsou stanoveny na den v týdnu měsíce (podobně jako české Velikonoce, i když u těch je to ještě složitější) a často spojeny s několikadenními prázdninami.
Původně jsem myslel, že Thanksgiving souvisí s přistáním otců poutníků  (Pilgrim Fathers) na Mayflower k americkému břehu v Plymouth 21. prosince 1620. Poté, co jsem zjistil, že v Kanadě slaví Thanksgiving druhé říjnové pondělí jsem byl ještě více zmaten, takže jsem využil služeb mého oblíbeného zdroje, Compton's Encyklopedia Online a zjistil jak to tedy je. Thanksgiving byl původně dožínkovou slavností, připomínající velkou žranici na podzim 1621, kdy se poutníci po třeskuté zimě, kterou přežila pouhá polovina poutníků dočkali bohatých úlovků a sklizně z políček osetých osivem věnovaným Indiány (ti také přinesli 5 jelenů). Název 'thansgiving' se objevuje dva roky poté; zda byl použit už při původní hostině není jisté.