Thanksgiving is on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and it is traditionally a time to reflect on good fortune and a plentiful harvest. Most Americans celebrate the day by cooking a big feast, eating too much, watching football, and spending some quality time on the couch to sleep off the wine and food buzz, but there is a lot more about this holiday than that.
Also, a potluck is a gathering of people where each person or group of people may prepare and bring a dish of food to share among the group.
A turkey trot is a fun run or footrace, usually of the long-distance variety, that is held on or around Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Americans expect huge Thanksgiving feasts and run in turkey trots to burn off calories before the big meal.
Here are the ten interesting facts about Turkey Day!
1. The first Thanksgiving likely had no Turkey.
The first Thanksgiving was a 3-day harvest feast in 1621 attended by the English Protestant settlers (we call them Pilgrims) and the native tribe of the Wampanoag near Plymouth, MA.
The first feast didn’t resemble our modern Thanksgiving dinner at all; it was comprised of venison (deer meat), shellfish, and corn. Though there were plenty of wild turkeys in the area, reports vary about whether or not they were actually consumed at the feast, and most scholars agree that venison was the main course.
2. President Abraham Lincoln made it an official holiday.
Other Presidents, including George Washington, sometimes issued an annual proclamation establishing a day of giving thanks, but there was no official holiday on record until 1863 when President Lincoln received a letter from a 74-year-old magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale.
3. Football has been on the menu since 1934.
There’s nothing more American than watching football on Thanksgiving Day!
The tradition started in 1934 when the new owner of the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans moved the team to Detroit and decided to compete against the Tigers for their fan base. The Detroit Lions scheduled a game against defending world champions the Chicago Bears, and the game was such a huge success that they decided to do a game on Thanksgiving every year.
4. Most popular parade in North America is held on Thanksgiving Day.
In 1924, Macy’s employees marched six miles from Harlem to Herald’s Square to kick off the Christmas season. They dressed up as clowns, knights and cowboys and were accompanied by marching bands and live animals from the Central Park Zoo. The event was so successful that they have held a parade every year since and it is now the most popular holiday parade in North America. These days 3.5 million people show up to watch in New York City and 50 million people watch the event from home.
5. Thanksgiving is celebrated in Space.
Astronauts celebrate Thanksgiving, even while living as far from their friends and family as possible on the International Space Station!
6. The Night before Thanksgiving is the biggest night of the year for bar sales.
Apparently going home for the holidays means meeting up with old friends and family members and heading out to the local bar! The night before Thanksgiving is the biggest night of the year for bar sales, even bigger than New Year’s Eve, St. Patrick’s Day, and The Super Bowl.
7. The President pardons two turkeys every year.
In 1947 President Truman started the tradition of selecting a turkey and sending it off to a farm somewhere to live out the rest of its life in peace. These days, two turkeys are selected and the people of the United States cast their votes to name them, then the President performs a public pardon.
8. It’s not the tryptophan that makes you sleepy.
Turkey contains the essential amino acid L-Tryptophan, which does make you sleepy. However, there’s not enough tryptophan in a serving of turkey to cause drowsiness, and in order for tryptophan to really make you sleepy you need to eat it on an empty stomach, and that’s certainly going to happen on Thanksgiving!
9. 45 million turkeys are consumed every Thanksgiving.
The sheer volume of food consumed in the U.S. every Thanksgiving is staggering. 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the U.S. at Thanksgiving, accounting for one sixth of all turkeys sold in the U.S. each year. Americans are expected to spend almost five billion dollars on turkeys this Thanksgiving.
10. The Day after Thanksgiving is called “Black Friday.”
The day after Thanksgiving is called “Black Friday.” The term “Black Friday” originated in 1960 in Philadelphia, a city which had the most malls in the U.S. at the time. The expression started because of the disruptive vehicular and pedestrian foot traffic caused by hoards of shoppers, but retailers later changed the meaning to a more positive connotation about store profits going them out of the red and into the black. This day is considered to be the official kick-off of the holiday shopping season.
