TURKEY. Pies. Football. Family. Black Friday.
What’s not to like about Thanksgiving?
According to Britannica, this most American of holidays is “modeled on a harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people in 1621. It is intended to celebrate the blessings of the past year.”
Thanksgiving became an official U.S. holiday in 1863 following a proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated the 4th Thursday of November as the official Thanksgiving Day.
Here are other Thanksgiving facts you may want to know (our sources are Selena Barrientos, Kelly Allen and Stefanie Waldek of House Beautiful design magazine):
1) Historians have no record of turkey being eaten at the first Thanksgiving. Ducks, geese, and swans are believed to have been served to the English settlers and Native Americans.
2) Benjamin Franklin wished the turkey was the national bird. Compared to the bald eagle, he said, the turkey is “a much more respectable Bird.” Better tasting, too.
3) Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” was the “Mother of Thanksgiving.” She was the one who urged President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward to declare Thanksgiving as a national holiday.
4) The first professional Thanksgiving Day football game was played in 1920. Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Decatur Staleys and Columbus Panhandles were the names of some of the teams.
5) “Jingle Bells” was originally a Thanksgiving song. “Before becoming a Christmas anthem, ‘Jingle Bells’ was an 1857 song titled ‘One Horse Open Sleigh,’ and its composer, James Pierpont, intended it to be a Thanksgiving Day song. But it became so popular around December 25 that in 1859 the title was changed to ‘Jingle Bells’ and the rest is history!”
6) Each year, about 46 million turkeys are cooked.
7) Many people enjoy Thanksgiving leftovers more than the meal itself.
8) President George H. W. Bush was the first to pardon a turkey.
9) The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is known as “Drinksgiving.”
10) The turkey is actually linked to Turkey, the country located in Southeastern Europe and Southwestern Asia. The bird got its name from the country due to a case of mistaken identity. Back in the day, “guinea fowl were exported from East Africa via Turkey to Europe, and Europeans started calling the birds turkey-cocks or turkey-hens due to the trade route. So when Europeans first sailed to North America and discovered birds that looked similar to guinea fowl, they called them ‘turkeys.’ ”
Happy Thanksgiving CNMI!
