Seven score and 11 years ago, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln set the precedent for America’s national holiday Thanksgiving. On Oct. 3, 1863, a month before the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln set apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” Abraham Lincoln Online says on Sept. 28, 1863, a 74-year-old magazine editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, wrote a letter to Lincoln urging him to have a “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She had written several of his predecessors who ignored her petitions. Hale explained, “There has been an increasing interest in our land to have a thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritative fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom.”Abraham Lincoln Online says prior to 1863, each state celebrated its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times. Lincoln quickly responded to Hale’s request with a proclamation recorded by U.S. Secretary of State William Seward.“I had no idea who made Thanksgiving an official day,” said BYU-Hawaii student Alisson McDaniel, a sophomore in elementary education from California. She said Lincoln is her favorite president and she is thankful for a nation with strong traditions. McDaniel said Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday of the year.“I like that Sarah Josepha Hale didn’t give up on making sure that our country would always have a day to set aside to celebrate thanksgiving together,” said BYUH student Carina Aldrich, a junior political science major from Utah.After reading the President’s proclamation (below) BYUH student Justin Kolilis, a junior in exercise science from Washington, said, “President Lincoln was a rad president. He did a lot of great things for our country, and I’m glad this was one of them since Thanksgiving is my favorite.”By the President of the United States of America.A Proclamation.The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, the order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. The population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with a large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my 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 and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union.In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.By the President: Abraham LincolnWilliam H. Seward, Secretary of StateSource: Abraham Lincoln Online.

Sterling Kerr, a senior biology major from Utah and the teaching assistant for the animal behavior class, said crickets are “one of the only animals on the earth actively going through an evolutionary process [people] can see with [their] eyes. … They’re a small cog in a really big wheel of things we don’t get to see every day.”

Every Friday and Monday after Thanksgiving, as many as 115 million people will flood the stores nationwide for the shopping spree known as Black Friday and another 164 million will surf the internet during Cyber Monday, according to fortune.com. Since nearly 70 percent of the nation’s population participate in this event three students have provided their own experience and tips on having the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday experience possible.

President Barack Obama announced plans for $30 million dollars to combat climate change concerns to Pacific Island government leaders at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Honolulu. “While some members of the U.S. Congress still seem to be debating whether climate change is real or not, you are planning for new places for your people to live,” he said.

Every year, one in four deaths are caused by heart disease says The American Heart Association and BYU-Hawaii students said they exercise and eat well to manage their heart health. Although heart disease is the leading cause of death the AHA says for men and women in the United States, it can often be prevented by making small and healthy choices.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump faced off in the final presidential debate moderated by Kristen Welker in Nashville, Tenn., on Thursday, Oct. 22. Although BYU–Hawaii students shared they felt more policies were discussed this time, they said the debate didn’t change their minds on either candidate.

In a statement released on Dec. 15, BYU–Hawaii announced BYUH faculty, staff, and students who are on campus are required to take a saliva-based COVID-19 test starting on Dec.17, 2020.

Up to 500 refugees drowned when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea on April 18, survivors told BBC. Official confirmations are pending.

Sister Neill F. Marriott, second counselor in the general presidency of the Young Women organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spoke on a panel at the United Nations’ 60th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on Thursday, March 24 in New York City, according to mormonnewsroom.org.