In what year did Congress declare Thanksgiving as a legal holiday to be celebrated on the 4th Thursday in Nove

1941

Though the United States' thanksgiving celebration on the fourth Thursday of November began with the United States Congressional declaration of 1941 establishing that weekday as the legal holiday of Thanksgiving Day, earlier United States Presidential Proclamations called for the last Thursday of November to be celebrated as Thanksgiving. Those Presidential Proclamations, in turn, built upon an American Colonial tradition--predating the formation of the United States-- establishing a Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. And the Thanksgiving Day Proclamations issued by American Colonial Governor Jonathan Belcher (1682-1757) played an important role in the origin of "November Thanksgiving Thursday." This is a little-known history not mentioned by other articles, which, after discussing the "first" Thanksgiving, typically begin their list of Thanksgiving Day proclamations with the one issued in 1789 by United States President George Washington naming November 26 as Thanksgiving Day. Next mentioned is often United States President Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation of 1863, which declared that the last Thursday of November should be celebrated as a day of thanksgiving. Succeeding U. S. Presidents followed Lincoln's lead, and this began the annual practice of U. S. Presidential proclamations calling on the people to celebrate Thanksgiving holiday on the last Thursday of November. Then, in 1941, the United States Congress declared that in the years thereafter, the national legal holiday of Thanksgiving Day would be on November's fourth Thursday.

1863