Do You Know How President Franklin Delano Roosevelt Tried to Change Thanksgiving?

Glenn Beck on Wednesday discussed the history of Thanksgiving and how U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt actually attempted to change it amid the Great Depression.

"It was always the fourth Thursday of November that was the annual day of Thanksgiving," Beck said. "From 1863 to 1939, it was the fourth Thursday of November. Why did it change in 1939?"

After a remark about how ironic it is that the left "(despises) the fact that big business rules the world," Beck said that "at  the tail end of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt, hoping to boost the economy by providing shoppers and merchants a few extra days to conduct their business between Thanksgiving and Christmas, moved Thanksgiving to November's third Thursday."

Glenn Beck discusses the history of Thanksgiving on Nov. 27, 2013. (Photo: TheBlaze TV)

"So the only reason why we changed the position of Thanksgiving is because we, officially, in FDR's (presidency), disconnected it from God and connected it to shopping," Beck continued. "A Gallup poll at the time showed 59% of Americans disapproved of the date change. 22 states decided to go along with Roosevelt's plan. 23 said, 'No, the old date. We should not be connecting this with shopping. We should be connecting this with the Lord.'"

The press began to dub the two Thanksgivings the "Republican Thanksgiving" and the "Democratic Thanksgiving" - the first as laid out by Abraham Lincoln and the second as laid out by FDR. Some even referred to the latter as "Franksgiving," Beck said.

So what was the result? Did Roosevelt's plan to stimulate the economy succeed?

"In 1941 the Wall Street Journal took a whole bunch of data and declared that the move was a bust," Beck said. "It provided no real boost to retail sales. But that's because most of America still had a problem with shopping on Thanksgiving, because that's not what it was about."

In 1941, FDR called a press conference to announce that the Thanksgiving "experiment" had failed and the nation would revert to celebrating on the last Thursday of the month. But Beck remarked that the impact of connecting Thanksgiving to shopping continues to this day.

Watch the entire segment, below:

Complimentary Clip from TheBlaze TV

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