Special - American as Pumpkin Pie: A History of Thanksgiving

11/23/2009 at 8:00 p.m.

When we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, we think we know what we're commemorating. After all, the story of Pilgrims and Indians breaking bread together is one of the first history lessons many of us had. But if an actual Pilgrim were to attend your Thanksgiving dinner, chances are he'd be stunned, and not a little disgusted, by what transpired there. On this holiday edition of "BackStory," the History Guys search for the true roots of Thanksgiving. They discover that the holiday we celebrate today begins not with the Pilgrims, but with the Victorians, who in the midst of the Civil War sought a national holiday honoring home and family. But did Thanksgiving strengthen the Union, as its proponents had hoped? What relation do Indians have to the holiday in reality and in myth? And what does football have to do with any of it?