The New Yorker covers: November 25, 1961

When was the first thanksgiving in what would become the United States? Virginia says 1619 in, of course, Virginia. More familiar, though, is a 1621 feast in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, involving Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people. Competing claims aside, the American holiday is now celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.

Frank Modell
(covers untitled until February 1993)