Thanksgiving (United States) The most prominent historic thanksgiving event in American popular culture is the 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the settlers held a harvest feast after a successful growing season. Autumn or early winter feasts continued sporadically in later years, first as an impromptu religious observance and later as a civil tradition. The Plymouth settlers, known as Pilgrims, had settled in land abandoned when all but one of the Patuxet Indians died in a plague. After a harsh winter killed half of the Plymouth settlers, the last surviving Patuxet, Squanto (who had learned English and avoided the plague as a
History of the Poles in the United States historical diary, Nonetheless, the Polish colonists led a strike in 1619 to protest their disenfranchisement in the New World; they had been excluded from voting rights by the first-ever legislative body. Their strike was the first labor protest in the New World. The date of their arrival, October 1, 1608, is a commemorative holiday for Polish-Americans. Polish American Heritage Month is based on this month, and October 1 is commemorated annually in Polonia organizations. 2008 was considered the 400-year anniversary of Polish settlement in the United States, and 2019 is looked upon as the 400th celebration of the Jamestown strike,