 The Continental Congress, the legislative body that governed the United States from 1774 to 1789, issued several "national days of prayer, humiliation, and thanksgiving", a practice that was continued by presidents Washington and Adams under the Constitution, and has manifested itself in the established American observances of Thanksgiving and the National Day of Prayer today.This proclamation was published in "The Independent Gazetteer, or the Chronicle of Freedom", on November 5, 1782, the first being observed on November 28, 1782