A turkey named Courage gave thanks to President Obama for saving his life on the day before Thanksgiving. Honouring a 62-year-old tradition, the President pardoned the bird on Thanksgiving eve. The tradition of a turkey pardon at Thanksgiving began with President Truman in 1947. Courage comes from Ellsworth, Iowa. The name Courage was chosen by voters  who took part in a survey posted on the White House website. The lucky turkey walked on the lawn of the Rose Garden and posed for the cameras at the presidential podium . The dinner that has become known as the First Thanksgiving was actually a harvest festival celebrated in December of 1621. That's when English settlers in Plymouth, Massachusetts, gave thanks for the progress they had made after a hard winter in their new country. As America grew, Thanksgiving customs also spread and got bigger. George Washington declared that the first national Thanksgiving would be on November 26, 1789. In the decades to follow, however, people celebrated Thanksgiving locally, with no official date. President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November 1863 a national day of Thanksgiving. It stayed that way until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it one week earlier. He wanted to lengthen the shopping period before Christmas to encourage gift-buyers and to help businesses. So Congress  ruled that, after 1941, Thanksgiving would be an official federal holiday falling on the fourth Thursday of November. This year we celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday, November. Millions of Americans got together to give thanks with friends and family. The lucky turkey, Courage, was one of them. After his pardon, Courage would be sent to Disneyland Resort in California, where he would be the grand assemble of Disney's Thanksgiving Day Parade. In 1939, President Roosevelt put forward the national day of Thanksgiving to   _  .
encourage the economy help the poor please Congress lengthen the summer holidays