Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States — a feast built around gratitude, family and a very large turkey. This countdown automatically targets the next one.
The 1621 harvest feast shared by the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag is the traditional origin story. Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned for decades to make it national, and Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it a nationwide holiday in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War.
The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has marched since 1924, the presidential turkey pardon became an annual ritual, and football and Black Friday shopping now bracket the meal. Canada celebrates its own Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October.