{"id":200900,"date":"2019-11-28T16:00:37","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T16:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.factstoryhub.com\/?p=200900"},"modified":"2025-02-17T14:00:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T14:00:41","slug":"thanksgiving-facts","status":"publish","type":[],"link":"https:\/\/www.factstoryhub.com\/thanksgiving-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Interesting Facts About Thanksgiving That You Should Know"},"content":{"rendered":"
Thanksgiving is the best food holiday of the year!\n
Although we know the popular story of the Pilgrims having a feast with the Native Americans, there\u2019s much more to it than that.\n
From lesser-known Thanksgiving origins to Presidents who didn\u2019t support it and how much turkey we eat, here at FactstoryHub, we brought you the full story!\n
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Most people are under the impression that the origins of Thanksgiving comes from friendly Native Americans joining the Pilgrims in a friendly feast in 1620.\n
In fact, many people dispute the real origins of Thanksgiving.\n
The National Parks Service says that in 1565, the Spanish founded a settlement called St. Augustine.\n
They celebrated by having a meal to which they invited the native Seloy tribe to.\n
It is gathered that the Spanish had pork stew, garbanzo beans, sea biscuits, and red wine.\n
It’s possible that the Seloy tribe contributed turkey, venison, and maize.\n
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It\u2019s not that Thomas Jefferson had a vendetta against thankfulness; instead, he saw the holiday as a blurred line.\n
You see, Thomas Jefferson was a firm believer in the separation of church and state, and supporting Thanksgiving meant state-sponsored religion.\n
In fact, he went so far as to say that he thought making Thanksgiving a National Holiday was \u201ca ridiculous proposition.\u201d\n
Thanksgiving didn\u2019t become a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln made it one after the tragedy of the Civil War. He declared Thanksgiving Day a national holiday on October 20, 1864.\n The term \u201cPilgrim\u201d was around until the 1880s. At that time, Pilgrims called themselves separatists.\n The word pilgrim literally means \u201ca person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons.\u201d\n Meanwhile, a separatist is a group, essentially a minority group, that separates itself from a larger belief system.\n While Thanksgiving is typically thought of as an American holiday, it\u2019s actually celebrated in a few other places as well.\n America\u2019s northern neighbor, Canada, celebrates Thanksgiving as well.\n The main difference between the two holidays is the fact that Canada celebrates their Thanksgiving over a month earlier.\n Since Canada\u2019s winter sets in earlier, than it does in the U.S., they celebrate the start of harvest; they celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October.\n Other countries that celebrate Thanksgiving are Grenada, which celebrates on October 25th, although the background is unrelated. Similarly, Liberia, the Philippines, Saint Lucia, and the Netherlands celebrate a version of Thanksgiving.\n Many of the Pilgrims who migrated to Plymouth Rock were from Leiden, Netherlands. They celebrate the hospitality that the Dutch Pilgrims received.\n Thanksgiving holiday is mostly based on the Pilgrims of the Mayflower having a feast with friendly Native Indians at Plymouth Rock.\n However, days of fasting and thanksgiving were common before that. Religious practice usually entailed fasting and praying as a way to give thanks.\n This was what the settlers had initially planned on doing, was fasting for three days to celebrate their first harvest.\n That changed when they were joined by the Wampanoah Indians, who turned their fast into a three-day feast.\n While Lincoln was president, a turkey was going to be killed for Thanksgiving dinner.\n His son was upset and begged Lincoln to let the turkey live.\n Abraham Lincoln agreed, and this story started a tradition that has continued.\n Now, every Thanksgiving, one lucky turkey is selected to be \u201cpardoned\u201d by the president, which is then sent to a farm to live out its days.\n Some of the turkeys get even better treatment than others.\n In 2005 and 2009, the pardoned turkeys were sent to Disneyland and Disney World to be the grand marshal in their Thanksgiving parades.\n When Lincoln made Thanksgiving a holiday, it was on the last Thursday of each November as we celebrate it now.\n However, in 1939, President Roosevelt moved it to the third Thursday of November.\n He thought that moving it up would allow for an extra week of shopping for the holiday season.\n However, the citizens were not a fan of the change, so it was officially and legally changed.\n On December 26, 1941, Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the US.\n There\u2019s a counter-protest to Thanksgiving called the National Day of Mourning. Since 1970, the United Native Americans of New England (UAINE) organize a protest to bring recognition to the suffering of their people.\n More specifically, it is a recognition of the Pequot War in which colonists attacked and killed 700 Pequot Indians.\n Any who were captured, hundreds of which were sold into slavery to the West Indies.\n One of the leaders of UAINE has stated that they will only stop protesting when \u201cthe merchants of Plymouth are no longer making millions of dollars off the blood of our slaughtered ancestors.\u201d\n They have further reasoning behind this, but the idea is all the same: they are protesting the exploitation and oppression of their culture.\n The famous children\u2019s lullaby \u201cMary Had a Little Lamb\u201d was written and edited by Sarah Josepha Hale.\n Sarah wrote to the president in office for 17 years in order to sway them to make it an official holiday.\n As the founder of the American Ladies Magazine, Sarah had been promoting women\u2019s rights far before suffrage started.\n She used this platform to publish articles and letters to persuade recognition of Thanksgiving.\n Sarah believed that the holiday would help to unite the North and South states during tension and division.\n One week after she sent one of her letters in 1863, Lincoln was the President to finally hear her out, and he wrote a proclamation of Thanksgiving which officially made it a national holiday.\n In 1953, an employee of Swanson accidentally made a mass order of Thanksgiving turkeys. To be exact, it was 260 tons!\n In order to get rid of them all, a salesman drew from how airplane food is served and thought of the idea to package a full meal on aluminum trays to be sold.\n The idea was approved, and 5,000 trays were willed with turkey, gravy, peas, and sweet potatoes.\n They were sold for a whopping 98 cents, and they were a hit!\n Since then, TV dinners have become a normal staple of dinners for people on the go, in a rush, or on a budget.\n All because one employee ordered too much turkey!\n Of course, turkey is a popular main dish for Thanksgiving, and in total, Americans consume 46 million turkeys each Thanksgiving.\n But out of all the states, Californians eat the most!\n The average Thanksgiving turkey weighs 15 pounds, making it the perfect bird to feed everyone.\n And even though it is the main choice for Thanksgiving, overall, only 88% of Americans choose turkey.\n The rest of the population is either vegetarian or vegan or maybe they just chose ham instead!\n Even so, enough people are a fan of this tasty bird that 22 million families have turkey for their Christmas dinner as well.\n As another staple of American Thanksgiving traditions, it\u2019s hard to imagine this iconic parade without giant balloons floating down the street!\n With the parade dating back to 1924, a lot about it has certainly changed and grown.\n A puppeteer who moved to New York City to perform with his puppets was discovered by Macy\u2019s hired him to create large animal-shaped balloons.\n The 1928 parade was the first to have massive balloons, and it hasn\u2019t stopped.\n The first parade they were featured in ended with the balloons being released into the sky, where they ended up bursting.\n The next year, they had safety valves that allowed them to float for a few days, and address labels are sewn into them.\n Anyone who found a grounded balloon and mailed it back would get a Macy\u2019s gift card!\n Dessert is a big part of the Thanksgiving meal! Seeing as pumpkins are a big part of fall and harvest, you would think pumpkin pie would be a national favorite.\n Surprisingly, 20% of Americans opt for apple pie over anything else, making it the favored pie choice!\n In second place is strawberry at 19%, just barely running up to apple pie.\n Finally, we come to pumpkin. Pumpkin pie ranks at 16% taking place as the third favorite Thanksgiving pie!\nThe Pilgrims never called themselves Pilgrims.\n
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Thanksgiving is celebrated outside the U.S.\n
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Days of thanksgiving meant not eating.\n
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There\u2019s a tradition of pardoning a turkey.\n
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The official day of Thanksgiving moved around.\n
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Some call it a \u201cday of mourning.\u201d\n
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The \u201cMary Had a Little Lamb\u201d author helped make Thanksgiving a holiday.\n
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TV dinners were born from a Thanksgiving accident.\n
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Not everyone chooses turkey as their main dish.\n
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The Original Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Parade didn\u2019t have any balloons.\n
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Pumpkin pie isn\u2019t the pie of choice for Thanksgiving.\n
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