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[There are times when I get so tired of the news
going on in today’s world. This is one of those
times. I decided to do my site for Thursday
about Thanksgiving. You may not be interested
in reading about this since it is not about prophecy
but I wanted to do something instead of writing,
“No headlines for Thursday.” lamb&lion]
30 Best Thanksgiving Trivia Fun Facts in 2020
You may think you know everything there is to
know about Turkey Day, but as it turns out
Thanksgiving is as fascinating as it is delicious.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve
celebrated Thanksgiving a time or two (let’s
face it, probably more). It’s one of our nation’s
most cherished holidays, filled with delicious
food and precious memories. But how much
do you really know about Thanksgiving? It’s
time to dive into Thanksgiving trivia to find out!
The first Thanksgiving was recorded in a letter
Pretty much everything we know about the
first Thanksgiving was written in a letter by a
colonist named Edward Winslow. Written to
someone he refers to as a “Loving, and old
Friend,” the letter is quite lengthy and he
touches on Thanksgiving only briefly.
It wasn’t always celebrated on the fourth
Thursday of the month
Thanksgiving has been around for a long time.
In fact, George Washington issued the first
presidential proclamation of a Thanksgiving
celebration in 1789. Other presidents followed
in his footsteps issuing proclamations of their
own. For decades Thanksgiving was held on
various dates until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed
it should be celebrated the last Thursday of
November in 1863. In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt
moved the date up a week earlier, however,
many states refused to play along. In 1941,
congress stepped in and passed a resolution
setting a fixed date for Thanksgiving on the
fourth Thursday of every month.
Not every president recognized Thanksgiving
Thomas Jefferson refused to declare a
Thanksgiving proclamation. Since previous
presidents had declared Thanksgiving to be a
day of fasting, prayer, and gratitude, Jefferson
felt the holiday inappropriately crossed the
boundary separating church and state.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is almost
100 years old
George Rinhart/Getty Images
Macy’s has been holding its annual Thanksgiving
Day parade since 1924. In addition to floats with
nursery rhyme characters like Mother Goose
and Little Miss Muffett, the inaugural parade
also included real bears, monkeys, elephants,
and other animals on loan from the Central
Park Zoo. In 1927 the animals were replaced
with giant balloon characters because their
frightened growls scared the children.
The TURDUCKEN has deep roots in New Orleans
New Orleans has a legendary food scene but
many people don’t know that the Thanksgiving
Turducken has roots there. In case you’ve never
had this mouthwatering marvel, a turducken is a
deboned chicken placed inside a deboned duck,
placed inside a turkey. It’s a lot of poultry!
Chef Paul Prudhomme is believed to have
invented the dish and served it at his New
Orleans restaurant, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen.
The turducken is one of the most-craved
regional foods in Louisiana.
A town once postponed Thanksgiving because
of pumpkin pie
No Thanksgiving trivia would be complete
without a story about pumpkin pie. In 1705,
the town of Colchester, Connecticut was so
dedicated to the dessert that they elected to
postpone the holiday because foul weather
had interfered with their molasses shipment.
Without molasses, they couldn’t make
pumpkin pie and without pumpkin pie,
Thanksgiving just wouldn’t be the same.
The first Thanksgiving menu probably
included lobster
If your family Thanksgiving meal traditionally
includes side dishes like mashed potatoes and
cranberry sauce, you might be surprised to
know they weren’t served at the first
Thanksgiving. In fact, potatoes weren’t
grown in North America yet and cranberry
sauce wouldn’t be invented for 50 more years.
What was most likely on the first Thanksgiving
menu? See below...
The inaugural Thanksgiving feast most likely
consisted of the following menu of foods,
which were plentiful and commonplace in
New England at the time:
Lobster, Mussels, Turkey, Duck, Venison,
Swan, Corn porridge, Corn bread,
Pumpkin mash and Sweet potatoes
Canada celebrates Thanksgiving, too
Another piece of Thanksgiving trivia you
may not know is that the holiday isn’t just
celebrated in the United States. Canada
celebrates Thanksgiving, too. Canadians,
however, celebrate in October, offering
thanks for a safe voyage that took place
more than 40 years before the Mayflower
crossing.
Black Friday is a busy day for plumbers
If you’re in the habit of braving the stores on
Black Friday, there’s a group of people you’re
not likely to see in the crowds: plumbers. It
turns out that enough people clog their sinks
and garbage disposals on Thanksgiving to
make it the busiest day of the year for plumbers.
The Butterball Turkey Hotline answers over
100,000 calls a year
If you’ve got a question about your Thanksgiving
turkey, the Butterball Turkey Hotline is at your
service. Each year, their experts take over
100,000 calls about turkey preparation during
November and December. Some of the
questions they receive are hilarious!
Thanksgiving inspired the first TV dinners
In 1953, the folks at Swanson didn’t sell as
many Thanksgiving turkeys as expected. In fact,
they had over 260 tons of unsold turkey on hand.
Inspired by the meals served in trays on airplanes,
Swanson salesperson Gerry Thompson used the
turkeys to create the world’s first TV dinners.
They sold for 98¢ each. These ready-made meals
were an immediate hit and Thompson was given
a $1,000 bonus for coming up with the idea, the
equivalent of five month’s salary.
Airline tickets are really expensive the Sunday
after Thanksgiving
Sometimes a little knowledge of Thanksgiving
trivia comes in handy. For instance, the Sunday
after Thanksgiving is usually one of the most
expensive days to fly due to high demand.
Booking your tickets home a day earlier or
staying a day longer could save you a
considerable amount of money.
The first presidential turkey pardon wasn’t
related to Thanksgiving
If you’ve ever wondered why the president
pardons a turkey every Thanksgiving, you
might be surprised to learn the tradition
started with a different holiday altogether.
That’s right! The presidential turkey pardon
has been traced back to 1863 when Abraham
Lincoln granted clemency to a live turkey
intended for his family’s Christmas dinner.
The first Turkey Trot was held in Buffalo,
New York
If your Thanksgiving morning includes getting
up early to run in a Turkey Trot you’re taking
place in a tradition that dates back over a
century. The first Turkey Trot was established
in 1896 in Buffalo, New York. A mere six runners
showed up to participate! Since then, the race
has become decidedly more popular with
millions of participants showing up for Turkey
Trots across the nation.
A very familiar Christmas carol was written
for Thanksgiving
Sometimes Thanksgiving trivia and Christmas
trivia collide. Like in the case of a famous
Christmas song that was actually written for
Thanksgiving. It turns out, James Lord Pierpont
originally wrote Jingle Bells so it could be
performed by his father’s Sunday school class
on Thanksgiving. No wonder the lyrics don’t
mention anything about Christmas!
You won’t believe how much turkey
Americans eat on Thanksgiving
According to the Southern Farm Network,
Americans consume 46 million pounds of
turkey every Thanksgiving. That’s a lot of
poultry, especially considering they eat
another 22 million pounds on Christmas!
The first Thanksgiving was long…really long
Drawings of everyone gathered around a table
enjoying a meal at the first Thanksgiving are
misleading. The first Thanksgiving feast took
place in 1621 and it was more than just a
single meal. It was a celebration that lasted
three days. This is far from the only piece of
Thanksgiving history to be frequently
misrepresented.
Critics picked a cartoon as the best Thanksgiving
movie of all time
According to critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the
best Thanksgiving movie of all time is a Charlie
Brown Thanksgiving. Producer Lee Mendelson
says he and Charles Schultz disagreed about a
scene in which Snoopy’s pal Woodstock ate
turkey because he didn’t think a bird would eat
another bird. He was overruled and the scene
stayed in.
The green bean casserole was invented by
a soup company
If your family holiday tradition includes green
bean casserole, you have Campbell’s Soup
Company to thank. The recipe was developed
by a woman named Dorcas Reilly, who worked
in the Campbell’s Soup home economics
department. Originally called Green Bean Bake,
the recipe became a sensation when the
company began printing it on the labels of
their cream of mushroom soup cans.
The pilgrim’s relationship with the
Wampanoag tribe was complicated
The pilgrims weren’t the first Europeans to
arrive in the area we now call New England.
Other White men had been there before,
killing off 90 percent of the Wampanoag
tribe by spreading diseases like smallpox.
Countless others were enslaved. When
the pilgrims arrived, the Wampanoag tribe
had been largely decimated, leaving them
in a vulnerable position compared to less
affected tribes. They formed an alliance
with the pilgrims, exchanging knowledge
of how to farm the land for European
weapons. Without this relationship, the
pilgrims wouldn’t have survived and there
would have been no Thanksgiving.
The Detroit Lions play every Thanksgiving
Watching football is a holiday tradition for
many families. This is especially true if you’re
a fan of the Detroit Lions. The Lions have
played every Thanksgiving since 1934. The
only exception being the years they didn’t
play due to World War II.
Thanksgiving dinner is high in calories
All that Thanksgiving food is delicious, but it’s
also—no surprise here—not the healthiest.
The average American consumes between
3,000 to 4,000 calories during their holiday
celebration.
There were no forks at the first Thanksgiving
It’s hard to imagine eating Thanksgiving dinner
without utensils but at the first celebration,
there were only knives and a few forks available.
For the most part, the feasters relied on their
hands. Obviously, this would be considered
bad etiquette today.
Astronauts in space don’t get the day off
If you’re an astronaut in outer space, you won’t
have the luxury of time off on Thanksgiving.
NASA still does its best to make the day special,
however. Astronauts are treated to a traditional
Thanksgiving menu including turkey, candied
yams, and mashed potatoes. After that, it’s back
to work, though.
Minnesota raises the most turkeys
There’s a good chance that turkey arrived at
your table by way of the North Star State.
The state raises more turkeys than anywhere
else in the United States.
There are three tiny towns named Turkey
The United States has three tiny towns named
after the turkey. Turkey, North Carolina, Turkey,
Texas, and Turkey Creek, Louisiana. Each one
has a population of under 500.
There were probably more Native Americans
than colonists at the first Thanksgiving
There were 22 male colonists, four married
female colonists, and 25 children at the first
Thanksgiving. By contrast, there were more
than 90 Native Americans taking part in the
celebration.
There was no pumpkin pie at the first
Thanksgiving
Although there was likely some sort of pumpkin
dish served at the first Thanksgiving, it definitely
wasn’t in pie form. The colonists didn’t have a
baking oven at Plimoth Plantation.
going on in today’s world. This is one of those
times. I decided to do my site for Thursday
about Thanksgiving. You may not be interested
in reading about this since it is not about prophecy
but I wanted to do something instead of writing,
“No headlines for Thursday.” lamb&lion]
30 Best Thanksgiving Trivia Fun Facts in 2020
You may think you know everything there is to
know about Turkey Day, but as it turns out
Thanksgiving is as fascinating as it is delicious.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve
celebrated Thanksgiving a time or two (let’s
face it, probably more). It’s one of our nation’s
most cherished holidays, filled with delicious
food and precious memories. But how much
do you really know about Thanksgiving? It’s
time to dive into Thanksgiving trivia to find out!
The first Thanksgiving was recorded in a letter
Pretty much everything we know about the
first Thanksgiving was written in a letter by a
colonist named Edward Winslow. Written to
someone he refers to as a “Loving, and old
Friend,” the letter is quite lengthy and he
touches on Thanksgiving only briefly.
It wasn’t always celebrated on the fourth
Thursday of the month
Thanksgiving has been around for a long time.
In fact, George Washington issued the first
presidential proclamation of a Thanksgiving
celebration in 1789. Other presidents followed
in his footsteps issuing proclamations of their
own. For decades Thanksgiving was held on
various dates until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed
it should be celebrated the last Thursday of
November in 1863. In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt
moved the date up a week earlier, however,
many states refused to play along. In 1941,
congress stepped in and passed a resolution
setting a fixed date for Thanksgiving on the
fourth Thursday of every month.
Not every president recognized Thanksgiving
Thomas Jefferson refused to declare a
Thanksgiving proclamation. Since previous
presidents had declared Thanksgiving to be a
day of fasting, prayer, and gratitude, Jefferson
felt the holiday inappropriately crossed the
boundary separating church and state.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is almost
100 years old
George Rinhart/Getty Images
Macy’s has been holding its annual Thanksgiving
Day parade since 1924. In addition to floats with
nursery rhyme characters like Mother Goose
and Little Miss Muffett, the inaugural parade
also included real bears, monkeys, elephants,
and other animals on loan from the Central
Park Zoo. In 1927 the animals were replaced
with giant balloon characters because their
frightened growls scared the children.
The TURDUCKEN has deep roots in New Orleans
New Orleans has a legendary food scene but
many people don’t know that the Thanksgiving
Turducken has roots there. In case you’ve never
had this mouthwatering marvel, a turducken is a
deboned chicken placed inside a deboned duck,
placed inside a turkey. It’s a lot of poultry!
Chef Paul Prudhomme is believed to have
invented the dish and served it at his New
Orleans restaurant, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen.
The turducken is one of the most-craved
regional foods in Louisiana.
A town once postponed Thanksgiving because
of pumpkin pie
No Thanksgiving trivia would be complete
without a story about pumpkin pie. In 1705,
the town of Colchester, Connecticut was so
dedicated to the dessert that they elected to
postpone the holiday because foul weather
had interfered with their molasses shipment.
Without molasses, they couldn’t make
pumpkin pie and without pumpkin pie,
Thanksgiving just wouldn’t be the same.
The first Thanksgiving menu probably
included lobster
If your family Thanksgiving meal traditionally
includes side dishes like mashed potatoes and
cranberry sauce, you might be surprised to
know they weren’t served at the first
Thanksgiving. In fact, potatoes weren’t
grown in North America yet and cranberry
sauce wouldn’t be invented for 50 more years.
What was most likely on the first Thanksgiving
menu? See below...
The inaugural Thanksgiving feast most likely
consisted of the following menu of foods,
which were plentiful and commonplace in
New England at the time:
Lobster, Mussels, Turkey, Duck, Venison,
Swan, Corn porridge, Corn bread,
Pumpkin mash and Sweet potatoes
Canada celebrates Thanksgiving, too
Another piece of Thanksgiving trivia you
may not know is that the holiday isn’t just
celebrated in the United States. Canada
celebrates Thanksgiving, too. Canadians,
however, celebrate in October, offering
thanks for a safe voyage that took place
more than 40 years before the Mayflower
crossing.
Black Friday is a busy day for plumbers
If you’re in the habit of braving the stores on
Black Friday, there’s a group of people you’re
not likely to see in the crowds: plumbers. It
turns out that enough people clog their sinks
and garbage disposals on Thanksgiving to
make it the busiest day of the year for plumbers.
The Butterball Turkey Hotline answers over
100,000 calls a year
If you’ve got a question about your Thanksgiving
turkey, the Butterball Turkey Hotline is at your
service. Each year, their experts take over
100,000 calls about turkey preparation during
November and December. Some of the
questions they receive are hilarious!
Thanksgiving inspired the first TV dinners
In 1953, the folks at Swanson didn’t sell as
many Thanksgiving turkeys as expected. In fact,
they had over 260 tons of unsold turkey on hand.
Inspired by the meals served in trays on airplanes,
Swanson salesperson Gerry Thompson used the
turkeys to create the world’s first TV dinners.
They sold for 98¢ each. These ready-made meals
were an immediate hit and Thompson was given
a $1,000 bonus for coming up with the idea, the
equivalent of five month’s salary.
Airline tickets are really expensive the Sunday
after Thanksgiving
Sometimes a little knowledge of Thanksgiving
trivia comes in handy. For instance, the Sunday
after Thanksgiving is usually one of the most
expensive days to fly due to high demand.
Booking your tickets home a day earlier or
staying a day longer could save you a
considerable amount of money.
The first presidential turkey pardon wasn’t
related to Thanksgiving
If you’ve ever wondered why the president
pardons a turkey every Thanksgiving, you
might be surprised to learn the tradition
started with a different holiday altogether.
That’s right! The presidential turkey pardon
has been traced back to 1863 when Abraham
Lincoln granted clemency to a live turkey
intended for his family’s Christmas dinner.
The first Turkey Trot was held in Buffalo,
New York
If your Thanksgiving morning includes getting
up early to run in a Turkey Trot you’re taking
place in a tradition that dates back over a
century. The first Turkey Trot was established
in 1896 in Buffalo, New York. A mere six runners
showed up to participate! Since then, the race
has become decidedly more popular with
millions of participants showing up for Turkey
Trots across the nation.
A very familiar Christmas carol was written
for Thanksgiving
Sometimes Thanksgiving trivia and Christmas
trivia collide. Like in the case of a famous
Christmas song that was actually written for
Thanksgiving. It turns out, James Lord Pierpont
originally wrote Jingle Bells so it could be
performed by his father’s Sunday school class
on Thanksgiving. No wonder the lyrics don’t
mention anything about Christmas!
You won’t believe how much turkey
Americans eat on Thanksgiving
According to the Southern Farm Network,
Americans consume 46 million pounds of
turkey every Thanksgiving. That’s a lot of
poultry, especially considering they eat
another 22 million pounds on Christmas!
The first Thanksgiving was long…really long
Drawings of everyone gathered around a table
enjoying a meal at the first Thanksgiving are
misleading. The first Thanksgiving feast took
place in 1621 and it was more than just a
single meal. It was a celebration that lasted
three days. This is far from the only piece of
Thanksgiving history to be frequently
misrepresented.
Critics picked a cartoon as the best Thanksgiving
movie of all time
According to critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the
best Thanksgiving movie of all time is a Charlie
Brown Thanksgiving. Producer Lee Mendelson
says he and Charles Schultz disagreed about a
scene in which Snoopy’s pal Woodstock ate
turkey because he didn’t think a bird would eat
another bird. He was overruled and the scene
stayed in.
The green bean casserole was invented by
a soup company
If your family holiday tradition includes green
bean casserole, you have Campbell’s Soup
Company to thank. The recipe was developed
by a woman named Dorcas Reilly, who worked
in the Campbell’s Soup home economics
department. Originally called Green Bean Bake,
the recipe became a sensation when the
company began printing it on the labels of
their cream of mushroom soup cans.
The pilgrim’s relationship with the
Wampanoag tribe was complicated
The pilgrims weren’t the first Europeans to
arrive in the area we now call New England.
Other White men had been there before,
killing off 90 percent of the Wampanoag
tribe by spreading diseases like smallpox.
Countless others were enslaved. When
the pilgrims arrived, the Wampanoag tribe
had been largely decimated, leaving them
in a vulnerable position compared to less
affected tribes. They formed an alliance
with the pilgrims, exchanging knowledge
of how to farm the land for European
weapons. Without this relationship, the
pilgrims wouldn’t have survived and there
would have been no Thanksgiving.
The Detroit Lions play every Thanksgiving
Watching football is a holiday tradition for
many families. This is especially true if you’re
a fan of the Detroit Lions. The Lions have
played every Thanksgiving since 1934. The
only exception being the years they didn’t
play due to World War II.
Thanksgiving dinner is high in calories
All that Thanksgiving food is delicious, but it’s
also—no surprise here—not the healthiest.
The average American consumes between
3,000 to 4,000 calories during their holiday
celebration.
There were no forks at the first Thanksgiving
It’s hard to imagine eating Thanksgiving dinner
without utensils but at the first celebration,
there were only knives and a few forks available.
For the most part, the feasters relied on their
hands. Obviously, this would be considered
bad etiquette today.
Astronauts in space don’t get the day off
If you’re an astronaut in outer space, you won’t
have the luxury of time off on Thanksgiving.
NASA still does its best to make the day special,
however. Astronauts are treated to a traditional
Thanksgiving menu including turkey, candied
yams, and mashed potatoes. After that, it’s back
to work, though.
Minnesota raises the most turkeys
There’s a good chance that turkey arrived at
your table by way of the North Star State.
The state raises more turkeys than anywhere
else in the United States.
There are three tiny towns named Turkey
The United States has three tiny towns named
after the turkey. Turkey, North Carolina, Turkey,
Texas, and Turkey Creek, Louisiana. Each one
has a population of under 500.
There were probably more Native Americans
than colonists at the first Thanksgiving
There were 22 male colonists, four married
female colonists, and 25 children at the first
Thanksgiving. By contrast, there were more
than 90 Native Americans taking part in the
celebration.
There was no pumpkin pie at the first
Thanksgiving
Although there was likely some sort of pumpkin
dish served at the first Thanksgiving, it definitely
wasn’t in pie form. The colonists didn’t have a
baking oven at Plimoth Plantation.