Wasn’t Thanksgiving Always Supposed to Be on the 3rd Thursday of Every November? Inside the Mandela Effect

Most people would probably agree that we live in strange times, especially in a post-pandemic world. But oftentimes, when we compare our current realities, it's often against the foils of our pasts. Could it be that we just remember things differently, because we were different people, with different personalities when they occurred?

A recent post by TikToker Megan Besler (@meganbesler) cuts to heart of this dilemma with a simple question: “Thanksgiving? When did it change?”

Megan emphatically asked folks on the platform if they, too, remembered Thanksgiving's date differently. She continued in her clip, “I will die on this hill, because it changed. I must be in a different timeline, because here’s the s--t I’m going to tell you.”

Next, she explained how she remembers a "fact" she thought to be common knowledge: “What I was taught when I was young was T. Why T? Thanksgiving, Thursday, Third. The third Thursday in November is Thanksgiving. I was taught that back in, like, f--king kindergarten and I’m almost 40. When did it change?”

During her rant, she preemptively calls out commenters on the video who she knows will say: “Look at your calendar. It’s always been the fourth Thursday."

She countered their arguments by stating that she's already done her due diligence in this regard. "I know. I’m not dumb. I looked back,” she explained.

For Megan, she wanted to know why this lesson was so embedded as part of her memory from such a young age. “But the thing is, it’s never been that way. And I know you all think it was, but it hasn’t."

The TikToker continued, "Why was I taught almost 40 years ago that T for Thursday, T for Thanksgiving, T for third? That’s how you remember when Thanksgiving is? Why is it different now? I’m clearly in a different timeline, and it’s really freaking me out."

Megan’s video prompted responses from numerous commenters who also felt the same. They, too, believed that they were taught the third Thursday of each November was when Thanksgiving was supposed to take place.

One averred, “It’s always been the third Thursday … and now my kids think I’m nuts.” Someone else went further, “I worked retail for 20 years. There were always five weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don’t belong here. Take me back to the Bernstein Bears world please.”

There was at least one user on the application who offered up a pragmatic explanation for her lapse in date judgment. “Leap year,” they noted. “2024 is a leap year. You are all OK. Everything is fine. 2020 was also a leap year and Thanksgiving was also on the fourth Thursday.”

So what's the official holiday date ruling? As it turns out, it's historically been both the third and fourth Thursday of November.

Thanksgiving has officially been on the fourth Thursday of November since 1941. But Megan and others weren’t wrong to feel like the timeline had indeed shifted. Before 1941, the date did change. The first to do this was President Abraham Lincoln, who proclaimed Thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November.

But then, in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to move it to the third Thursday to extend the holiday shopping season. The move was unpopular and confusing, leading to two dates for Thanksgiving some years, which earned it the nickname “Franksgiving.”

Congress eventually standardized the date as the fourth Thursday in November. That’s been the rule ever since, long before Megan went to kindergarten (unless she's some type of vampire like this beloved actor) — but why does the date still feel off for so many people?

This could be attributed to the number of Thursdays November sometimes has, which changes throughout the years. November 2024 had five Thursdays, which might make Thanksgiving seem later than usual.

And then, as some commenters mentioned, Leap years can also add to the befuddlement Megan and others experienced. Every four years, February gets an extra day because the Earth’s orbit around the sun takes about 365.2422 days, not the exact 365. The leap year system, first created under Julius Caesar’s Julian calendar in 45 B.C., was created to keep the calendar aligned with the seasons. Later, Pope Gregory XIII stepped in 1582, creating the Gregorian calendar we use today, which included rules for leap years.

So while Thanksgiving hasn’t moved in over 80 years, the intricacies of calendars and the imperfections of human memory can make it feel like it has. Whether we’re in a different timeline or just living in strange times, what we do know is that Thanksgiving is indeed on the fourth Thursday of November.