摘要
几乎世界上的每一种文化都为丰收而庆祝。美国感恩节假期始于大约四百年前美国殖民地早期的感恩节。1620年，一艘载有100多人的船横渡大西洋来到新大陆定居。这个宗教团体在英国开始质疑教会的信仰，所以想与之分离。朝圣者在现在的马萨诸塞州定居。他们在新大陆的第一个冬天过得很艰难。他们来得太晚了，不能种更多的庄稼，没有新鲜食物，一半的人死于疾病。第二年春天，易洛魁族印第安人教他们如何种植玉米，这是殖民者的新食物，告诉他们如何在这陌生的大地种植其他作物，以及如何捕猎和捕鱼。
Almost every culture in the world has held celebrations of thanks for a plentiful harvest. The American Thanksgiving holiday began as a feast of thanksgiving in the early days of the American colonies almost four hundred years ago. In 1620, a boat filled with more than one hundred people sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World. This religious group had begun to question the beliefs of the Church of England and they wanted to separate from it. The Pilgrims settled in what is now the state of Massachusetts. Their first winter in the New World was difficult. They had arrived too late to grow many crops, and without fresh food, half the colony died from disease. The following spring the Iroquois Indian staught them how to grow corn, a new food for the colonists; showed them other crops how to grow in the unfamiliar soil and how to hunt and fish.
