(EXPLAINER) Thanksgiving Day isn’t just about parades, crowded airports, football games and a turkey dinner.

The day has been a national holiday in the United States since 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln declared it so. Due to the Civil war, the holiday was not celebrated nationally since the 1870s. Thanksgiving Day has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November since 1942.   

The modern celebration has been linked to the Pilgrims who came to the New World in 1621 and the harvest festival since the late 19th century. As the name implies, the theme of the holiday revolves around giving thanks with the centerpiece of most celebrations being a Thanksgiving meal.

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The holiday has traditionally been a celebration of the blessings for the past year, including the harvest. It is also the official start of the Christmas shopping season since the day is followed by Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Those who are more charity-minded also make sure to donate on Giving Tuesday.

Here are six facts about Thanksgiving and how the holiday is tied to faith:

Seeking religious freedom

The Pilgrims were English Protestants who were separatists. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, they fled England for the Americas in search of religious liberty and away from persecution.

They fled what they believed was a corrupt Church of England, formed by King Henry VIII who separated from the Catholic Church in order to divorce his wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, and marry Ann Boleyn. The pilgrims settled at Plymouth, Mass., in 1620.

Not just Pilgrims  

Only 44 passengers on the Mayflower were people we call Pilgrims – or “Saints” as they called themselves. The rest were “The Strangers” who were not seeking religious freedom, but rather an opportunity to money.

Making America Christian

Aside from fleeing persecution, another reason the Pilgrims came to America was to spread Christianity. They wrote in the Mayflower Compact, “In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten … having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia.”

Native American spirituality and giving thanks

Many Native Americans settlers encountered at the time believed spirituality was not a part from the rest of life and that special holidays were not reserved for giving thanks. Instead, every day was a day for thanksgiving.

Squanto was Catholic  

The Thanksgiving that we all know and celebrate exists, in part, thanks to a Catholic. Long before that 1621 feast, the Native American named Squanto suffered enslavement, brought to Europe and later gained his freedom.

In the meantime, he was baptized a Catholic and learned English. He returned to Massachusetts in time to teach the Pilgrims where to fish and how to grow the corn and squash, all food served at the first Thanksgiving. 

The first Thanksgiving took place in 1565?

The first recorded Thanksgiving meal between the Pilgrims and Native Americans at Plymouth in 1621 may not have been the first of its kind. Some historians say the first actually took place more than 50 years earlier, in St. Augustine.

Spanish documents, first highlighted by the University of Florida’s Michael Gannon, reveal that the first meal between European colonists and Native Americans on U.S. soil took place in 1565 on the grounds of what is now known as the Fountain of Youth.

Call to prayer

Saying grace at Thanksgiving is especially common among many religious groups.

A new Pew Research Center study found that 91% of white evangelical Protestants say someone at their Thanksgiving dinner typically says a prayer or blessing, as do 88% of Black Protestants, 74% of Catholics and 72% of white Protestants.

Around two-thirds of U.S. adults say someone at their dinner typically says a prayer or blessing (65%) or says things they are thankful for (69%). In fact, a majority of Americans (56%) say someone at their turkey day dinner typically does both of these things.

Prayer is much less common among those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” (45%), agnostics (39%), atheists (22%) and Jews (22%).

Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.