The America's Hometown Thanksgiving Parade is an annual parade held in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The parade, which began in 1996, is traditionally held the weekend before Thanksgiving and draws its name from the fact that Plymouth Colony was the landing point of the Pilgrims involved in the traditional "First Thanksgiving" in the early 1620s. Unlike most Thanksgiving parades, which include giant balloons of popular characters, the America's Hometown parade has a strict theme. Each element in the parade is based on the history of the United States and arranged in chronological order, with five divisions separated by century: the colonial period of the 17th century, the Revolutionary period of the 18th century, the Civil War and pioneer periods of the 19th century, military and automotive sho