Facts about Thanksgiving
The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth
Rock on December 11, 1620.
The first Thanksgiving dinner
took place in Plymouth Colony in October (not November), 1621.
The Thanksgiving Feast that the
Pilgrims had with the Natives in 1621 lasted three days. “The people who had
the ‘first Thanksgiving’ didn’t really think of it as such. It was the end of
the first growing season in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the Puritans threw a
harvest festival to celebrate. The men went ‘fowling,’ or hunting wild birds. A
large group of Wampanoag showed up with five deer. Everyone had a party for
three days. They ate and shot guns for fun.”
50 English colonists and 90
Wampanoag Indian men attended the meeting. Very few women, if any, were
present.
Thanksgiving wasn’t actually a
unique celebration when it occurred. Long before the pilgrims arrived in
Plymouth, Europeans, Native Americans and other cultures gathered for feasts to
honor the harvest season and give thanks for their food and existence.
It is not a sure thing that
turkey was part of the Thanksgiving Feast, but venison was definitely part of
the meal.
All 13 colonies celebrated
Thanksgiving together for the first time in 1777.
George Washington advocated for
Thanksgiving to be an official holiday on October 3, 1789.
The popular Christmas song
“Jingle Bells” was actually written for Thanksgiving. The song was composed in
1857 by James Pierpont, and was originally called “One Horse Open Sleigh”.
By the mid–1800s, many states
observed a Thanksgiving holiday. Meanwhile, the poet and editor Sarah J. Hale
had begun lobbying for a national Thanksgiving holiday. During the Civil War,
President Abraham Lincoln, looking for ways to unite the nation, discussed the
subject with Hale. In 1863 he gave his Thanksgiving Proclamation, declaring the
last Thursday in November a day of thanksgiving.
The American south viewed
Thanksgiving as a “Yankee” holiday at first and didn’t celebrate it. After the
Civil War, the states became united once again and Thanksgiving was recognized
everywhere. Good thing, too, because the south contributed classic dishes like
pecan pie and sweet potatoes.
Every year the U.S. President
pardons a turkey. Abraham Lincoln started the turkey-pardoning trend.
There was a big date dispute of 1939 when two Thanksgiving
holidays were observed…
You see, according to the Franklin D. Roosevelt
Presidential Library and Museum, a five-Thursday November fell in 1933 and some
retailers asked President Roosevelt to move the holiday up a week. The
president denied the request and Americans ate their turkey on the last
Thursday as always in 1933.
But, Roosevelt was president for a long time, long enough
for another five Thursday November to roll around in 1939. Once again, some
business leaders asked if the date for the holiday could be a week earlier to
give people more time to shop for Christmas, and this time Roosevelt agreed to
do it. This raised a hue and cry as many people felt that he was catering to
large retailers so they could make more money. Critics of Roosevelt claimed
that he was giving into the big businesses and deemed the holiday
“Franksgiving".
Controversy followed, and to end the confusion, Congress
decided to set a fixed-date for the holiday. On October 6, 1941, the House
passed a joint resolution declaring the last Thursday in November to be the
legal Thanksgiving Day. The Senate, however, amended the resolution
establishing the holiday as the fourth Thursday, which would take into account
those years when November has five Thursdays. The House agreed to the amendment,
and President Roosevelt signed the resolution on December 26, 1941, thus
establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the Federal Thanksgiving Day
holiday. According to the law it doesn’t matter how many Thursday’s there are
in November, Thanksgiving will always be on the 4th Thursday.
Staples like green bean casserole would not have appeared on
the original Thanksgiving menu.
Jennifer Monac, a spokesperson for the
living-history museum Plymouth Plantation told National Geographic that the
guests probably would have consumed meats like venison, birds, fish, lobster
and clams. They would have also enjoyed nuts, wheat flour, pumpkin, carrots,
peas and squashes, too
About 46 million turkeys were eaten in 2011 for Thanksgiving
dinner
Minnesota produces the most turkeys in the US. North
Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia and Indiana are also top producers
Farmers produced about 768 million pounds of cranberries in
2012. Cranberries are native to America and the biggest producing states are
Wisconsin and Massachusetts.
The first football game that took place on Thanksgiving Day
was in 1934, when the Detroit Lions played the Chicago Bears with 26,000
spectators watching
November 22nd is the earliest Thanksgiving can
occur (which will be in 2018). November 28th is the latest date
Thanksgiving can occur (which will be in 2019).
For those who like to plan ahead:
In 2015 the date will be November 26th,
In 2016 the date will be November 24th,
In 2017 the date will be November 23rd (Happy 18th Birthday to my grandson!)
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