Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Thanksgiving
A menu for a 1779 New England Thanksgiving included dishes from turkey and venison to pumpkin pie.
Editor's Note: The nine Thanksgiving recipes linked to below are reprinted from The American Heritage Cookbook, which was published in eight editions from 1964 to the mid-1980s. Read more >>
Why were twenty wounded American soldiers released on Thanksgiving in 1950, days before the Chinese attacked in Korea?
On Thanksgiving Day 1950, two months after General MacArthur’s masterly strategic stroke at Inchon, I was seventy-five miles south of Manchuria, posted to a battalion-sized 25th Infantry Division Task Force named for its commander, Lt. Col. Weldon G. Dolvin. Read more >>
1621 Three Hundred Seventy-five Years Ago
When President Washington proclaimed the first Thanksgiving, the anti-Federalists complained it usurped States’ Rights
An attempt at modest celebration during the longest battle on German territory during World War II ended badly.
After reading an interview with General Gavin in a newspaper, a major who had fought in the Huertgen Forest wrote the general the following letter: Read more >>