The Washington Examiner has made it a tradition to publish President Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of Oct. 3, 1863, each Thanksgiving Day. Lincoln invited “fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving.” This would eventually become the modern Thanksgiving holiday.

October 3, 1863