FUN FACTS ABOUT…
Presented to
you by DeLena Ciamacco
This year, Thanksgiving will be a little different
than ever before but the Facts & “history” of Thanksgiving will never
change.
We are sure you've heard stories on the history of
Thanksgiving a million times, and will probably hear even more this week. Well
then, allow us to enlighten you with some strange and funny facts about the
famous holiday that you might not have heard before.
The Meaning of Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving
is celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada as a day of giving
thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Americans
commonly trace the Thanksgiving holiday to a 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the Plymouth
settlers held a harvest feast after a successful growing season. Squanto, a Patuxet Native American who
resided with the Wampanoag
tribe, taught the Pilgrims
how to catch eel and grow corn and served as an interpreter for them (Squanto
had learned English during his enslavement in England). Additionally the
Wampanoag leader Massasoit had donated
food stores to the fledgling colony during the first winter when supplies
brought from England were insufficient. The Pilgrims celebrated at Plymouth for
three days after their first harvest, in 1621. It included 50 Pilgrims (all who
remained of the 100 who had landed) and 90 Native Americans who were invited as
guests.
- The original Thanksgiving included a menu featuring
swans, seal, lobster, and deer. Cakes and pies were not a part of the meal
as the pilgrim’s sugar supply had dwindled during the year and they
possessed no ovens. There were also no forks at the first Thanksgiving;
they were not popularized until the 18th century.
- Squanto,
the Pawtuxet Indian responsible for teaching the pilgrims how to farm,
fish, and avoid poisonous plants was fluent in English after being
captured by an English sea captain, sold into slavery, and escaping to
London before returning to the new world on an exploratory trip.
- The first state to officially adopt the holiday was New
York in 1817.
- Sarah
Joseph Hale, the woman responsible for the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a
Little Lamb” launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national
holiday before Abraham Lincoln heeded her request in 1863.
- The official date set by
Lincoln for the Thanksgiving holiday was the last Thursday in November,
until Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it up a week in 1939 to spur spending
for the Christmas holiday during the height of the Depression.
-
Thanksgiving Day Parade -
Brent Connelly from Pixabay
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The first Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade was held in
1924, and used real animals borrowed from Central Park Zoo. The Goodyear
Company would make the first helium balloon for the parade in 1927,
officially replacing the animals. Balloon handlers used to release the
balloons at the end of the parade with the promise of rewards for whoever
found them once they touched down. Today the parade attracts millions of
spectators along the parade route each year.
- Thanksgiving is celebrated annually by the United
States, Canada, Liberia, Puerto Rico, and Norfolk Island. Canadians even
refer to our Thanksgiving as “Yanksgiving” in order to differentiate them
(theirs is held the second Monday in October.)
-
The best way to test if your
cranberries are ripe? Bounce them on the ground; if they bounce higher
than 4 inches, they’re ready to be made into sauce. Cranberries are only
one of three fruits that are originally native to the United States.
- Frozen T.V. dinners were created in
1953 in an effort to get rid of 260 tons of leftover turkey from
Thanksgiving that manufacturers still had not sold.
-
In 2007, Americans consumed 690 million pounds of turkey for
Thanksgiving according to the National Turkey Association. That is roughly
equal to the weight of the entire population of Singapore.
-
The tradition of watching
football on Thanksgiving began in 1934, after the creation of the Detroit
Lions, who were formerly the Portsmouth Spartans. To generate interest and
attention for the new team, their owner set up a game for Thanksgiving Day
against the defending world champs, the Chicago Bears. The tradition stuck
from there.
- Green
bean casserole, a staple at most Thanksgiving meals is only 62 years old. Campbell’s Soup
created the recipe in 1955 in an effort to generate sales for their cream
of mushroom soup.
- The night before Thanksgiving
is the single biggest sales day at bars across the United States, beating
out St. Patrick’s Day for the title. The theory is that thousands of
people descend on their old home towns where they meet up with old friends
and head to the bars to catch up and celebrate. This time also marks the
release of most brewing companies Christmas and Holiday ales.
Minnesota is the
biggest turkey producing state in the country, followed by North Carolina,
Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia, and Indiana. These six states account for 2
in 3 turkeys sold during Thanksgiving.
·
President George H.W. Bush pardoned the first turkey in 1989, and
it's a tradition that persists today. But what happens to the lucky bird that
doesn't get served with a side of mashed potatoes? In 2005 and 2009, the
turkeys were sent to Disneyland and Walt Disney World parks to serve as grand
marshal in their annual Thanksgiving parades. And from 2010 to 2013, they
vacationed at Washington's Mount Vernon state. Not bad!
WE ALL HOPE YOU HAVE…
A Happy Thanksgiving!
