Thanksgiving is held on Thursday of November each year.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln designated the last Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving. However, in 1939, after a request from the National Retail Dry Goods Association, President Franklin Roosevelt decreed that the holiday should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of the month(and never the occasional fifth, as occurred in 1939) to extend the holiday shopping season by a week. The decision sparked great controversy and was still unresolved two years later when the House of Representatives passed a resolution making last Thursday a national legal holiday in November. The Senate amended the resolution, setting the date the fourth Thursday, and the House eventually agreed.
