The event commonly remembered as “the first Thanksgiving feast” was a three‑day harvest celebration at Plymouth in the autumn of 1621, sometime between late September and early November of that year.

Quick Scoop

Historians agree that the famous feast involved the English Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag people gathering to celebrate a successful harvest in 1621, not on a single exact calendar date. This celebration likely took place between September 21 and early November, with some scholars suggesting around Michaelmas (near September 29) as the most probable time.

Over time, 19th‑century writers and educators retroactively labeled this 1621 harvest gathering as the “First Thanksgiving,” turning a local harvest celebration into a founding national myth for the United States. While other earlier thanksgivings and religious services of thanks occurred in North America, the 1621 Plymouth feast is the one most people mean when they ask when the first Thanksgiving feast was held.

Many modern historians now emphasize that the 1621 event was a shared harvest gathering rather than a formal Thanksgiving holiday as later Americans would understand it.

TL;DR: The first Thanksgiving feast people usually talk about happened in Plymouth, in what is now Massachusetts, over three days in autumn 1621, probably between late September and early November.

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