Q: I always thought Thanksgiving was the last Thursday in November as declared by President Lincoln (October 3, 1863). Why is that different this year?
A: Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. After 1815 there were no more Thanksgiving Proclamations until the Presidency of Lincoln, who made two during the Civil War. President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a Federal holiday as a "prayerful day of Thanksgiving" on the last Thursday in November. Since then every U.S. President has always made an official Thanksgiving Proclamation on behalf of the nation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941).