In today's episode of the English to English Translator, for the benefit of our non-American friends, we're going to be looking at... Thanksgiving. Ask your average American and they'll know exactly what you mean by thanksgiving. They'll tell you how it's all about getting together with family and eating copious amounts of food and how it's followed by Black Friday, a time when there are loads and loads of good deals on and when people regress into angry apes in order to get to said deals. But if you're somewhere else in the world by the US or Canada, they won't know what an earth you're on about if you wish them a happy thanksgiving. Or at the very least they'll have heard of it, but they won't know why it's celebrated or exactly what it is. On the other hand, they probably will know what Black Friday is, and might even have partaken in the unnarcated consumerism-driven chaos themselves. So what exactly is this thanksgiving business all about them? Well, whether you were confused, Brit wondering what exactly your American friends are celebrating or an American who can't remember exactly why they stuffed themselves silly at the end of every November, fear not, because the aboy, Dutarium has done the research and he is here to explain everything. Thanksgiving is a whole day which is celebrated in various parts of the world, but will focus on the American one, which is celebrated on the fourth day in November. Abraham Lincoln declared that date a national day of thanksgiving and prayer in 1863, following a campaign by once Sarah Joseph a Hale. In modern America, thanksgiving usually entails getting together with one's family, dressing up in racially-intensive costumes and eating gargantuan quantities of food. Typically things like roast turkey, which forms the centrepiece of the thanksgiving meal, mashed potato, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and some kind of pie for afters. Typically apple, pumpkin or pecan. Typically after this, at least one person also collapses on the couch from a supposed trip to fan overdose from the turkey. There's usually also televised parades, the most famous of which being New York's parade, organized annually by store chain maces, as well as American football games, and since 1989, the president of the United States ceremonially pardons a single turkey. But why is all this done? Well it all stems back to one particular American legend. The gist of the traditional thanksgiving story goes something like this. In the year 1620 a ship called the Mayflower set sail from Britain for America, some in the hopes that they would find somewhere where they could practice their faith freely, others in the hopes that the classic American dream of land and prosperity. After a treacherous just over two month voyage, they finally weighed anchor in Cape Cod in what's now known as Massachusetts. The kids Nat Geo claimed they were actually initially aiming for what's now New York. Sometime after landing, the poor pilgrims had to bunk up for the winter on the Mayflower during which half of them died from cold, scurvy and other diseases. In March of that year they finally moved ashore and migrated by a native American who went to get one of his friends from another tribe a few days later to teach them how to cultivate corn and catch fish, among other survival skills, as well as helping them to forge an alliance with a local tribe called the Wompernog. Following their first successful corn harvest in 1621, Governor William Bradford, who was among them, organized a celebratory feast and invited several of their native American mates to join in, including Massa Soito Samakwin, who was the satchim of the Wompernog at the time. Over time, the Friday after Thanksgiving has come to be known as Black Friday. Black Friday often signals the start of the Christmas shopping season in America, and accordingly, around this time, many retailers offer many of their products at very deep discounts, leading to... The name actually originally used to refer to the 24th of September 1869, when the gold market crashed thanks to two stockbrokers buying way too much of the stuff in an attempt to drive up its market price. It was later used in the late 50s, early 60s by police and Philadelphia as a kind of derisive nickname for the crowds of American football fans who descended on the city prior to the annual Army Navy football game. It was only following that, but retailers started to link it to the shopping season. They were led to the not before a failed attempt to rebrand it as BIG Friday to combat the negative connotations of the phrase, and slowly bit surely it began to resemble the... ...modern Black Friday around the 90s and 90s. Well, so much for the skinny on Thanksgiving, but if you'll stick with me just a little longer, I've also prepared a special episode of all the inaccuracies, talking about everything wrong with the traditional story of Thanksgiving. The link should be on screen either right now or very soon, and while you're here, thank you very much for watching and especially thanks to everyone in my Discord server for their help with this video, especially the person on screen right now. Thank you all for watching and I'll see you probably in the linked video, but in the event that you don't get onto that one for a while. Tata!