The event commonly called the “first Thanksgiving” in what is now the United States took place in the autumn of 1621 , after the harvest, in Plymouth, in present‑day Massachusetts. The exact day is not known, but historians place it sometime between late September and early November, with many suggesting very early October as most likely.

1621 harvest celebration

  • The gathering was a three‑day harvest celebration shared by the English Pilgrims at Plymouth and Wampanoag people, not a single formal “Thanksgiving Day” as the term is used now.
  • Contemporary accounts describe it as a successful harvest feast with food, games, and diplomacy, rather than a national religious holiday.

Not the first “thanksgiving” ever

  • Europeans had held earlier thanksgiving services in North America, such as English ceremonies in the 1500s and early 1600s, but these did not evolve into today’s U.S. holiday.
  • The 1621 Plymouth event later became the symbolic origin story for the modern American Thanksgiving tradition, which much later was fixed as a U.S. federal holiday on the fourth Thursday in November in 1941.

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