At the height of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, at the urging of a magazine editor, proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day holiday. It was first celebrated on the final Thursday in November 1863.

More than 160 years later, with Thanksgiving as entrenched as lutefisk in the fall and fireworks on the Fourth, we share Lincoln's proclamation:

“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the mi

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