On the fourth Thursday of November we celebrate Thanksgiving, a day to give thanks and celebrate the bounty of the harvest by gathering with family and friends for a special dinner, traditionally featuring turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing and pumpkin pie. It commemorates the feast held in 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag to celebrate the Plymouth Colony’s first successful harvest.

Thanksgiving — This page has links to Thanksgiving resources including history, recipes, craft ideas and more.

On November 11, 1918, at 11 AM, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the Armistice was signed which ended the first World War. Thereafter, November 11 was celebrated as Armistice Day, with Congress making the date a federal holiday in 1938. After World War II, the date became known as Veterans Day, a change recognized by Congress in 1954, declaring it a day to honor all American veterans of all wars. In 1971, Veterans Day became a holiday celebrated on the fourth Monday in October, but it was returned to its original date, November 11, in 1977.

Veterans Day — More about this patriotic holiday

Guy Fawkes from "Guy Fawkes: the Gunpowder Treason" by W.H. Ainsworth

Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated in England as the anniversary of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, a conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament on November 5, 1605, the day that King James I was to open Parliament. Guy Fawkes was arrested in a cellar beneath the House of Lords with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. Ultimately many other conspirators were chased, killed, arrested, imprisoned or executed.

The date is traditionally celebrated with bonfires, fireworks, and the burning of cloth effigies or “guys.”