Today in history: October 3

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last updated 8 January 2015

Oct. 3, 1863: President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation designating the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. Lincoln's order stemmed from a letter he got from Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, who urged him to have the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." It needs, she said, "national recognition and authorative fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution." Prior to this, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times.

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Oct. 3, 2008: As fears mounted that the U.S. financial system might collapse, President Bush signed the $700 billion bank bailout bill. The bill, formally known as the Troubled Assets Relief program (TARP), was designed to inject capital into financial institutions to keep the economy running. Why $700 billion? It was, a Treasury Dept. official later said, a figure plucked from thin air. Treasury Secretary Henry "Hank" Paulson originally proposed a $1 trillion bailout package, a figure that was rejected as being too big. The $700 billion was later reduced to $475 billion by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.