Editor’s note: While Thanksgiving Day has deep roots, as a national holiday it is a distinctively American invention. And indeed it is particularly associated with the nation’s greatest historical figures: George Washington, who established the first Thanksgiving Day; Abraham Lincoln, who began the tradition of annual Thanksgiving proclamations; Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who fixed the date as the fourth Thursday in November.

In the decades since, John F. Kennedy produced the most substantive and eloquent Thanksgiving proclamations. We present his 1962 effort below.

The proclamation was given on Nov. 7 for the Nov. 22 holiday, which means it came only 10 days after the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, arguably the most dangerous moment not just of the Cold War, but of world histor

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