Thanksgiving is always celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. This date was established by federal law in 1942. However, the date of Thanksgiving has changed several times throughout history. For example, in 1789, President George Washington declared Thursday, November 26, as a day of public thanksgiving, but the holiday bounced informally from month to month and date to date in the years that followed. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as the national day of Thanksgiving, and this became the norm until 1939. In that year, retailers asked President Franklin D. Roosevelt to push the holiday back a week in order to give people more time for holiday shopping, and he agreed. However, many saw the move as nothing but a money grab by retailers, and several governors declared that the holiday would be celebrated in their states on the traditional last Thursday. The battle was finally settled when Congress passed a law in December 1941 that made Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.