Fun & Interesting Thanksgiving Facts

Thanksgiving Day is a Holiday rooted in rich history. Here are some very fun and interesting Thanksgiving facts to share during Thanksgiving dinner.

*Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States.

*Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada.

*The pilgrims arrived in North America in December 1620.

*The Pilgrims sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to reach North America.

*The pilgrims sailed on the ship, which was known by the name of 'Mayflower'.

*The Wampanoag Indians were the people who taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate the land.

*The drink that the Puritans brought with them in the Mayflower was beer.

*By the fall of 1621 only half of the pilgrims, who had sailed on the Mayflower, survived. The survivors, thankful to be alive, decided to give a thanksgiving feast.
They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

*The Pilgrim leader, Governor William Bradford organized the Thanksgiving feast and invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians also to the feast.

*The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days.

* At the first harvest celebration with the pilgrims and Native Americans, "fowl" was eaten. While this might have been turkey, it's more likely to have been geese and ducks.

* A mature turkey has 3,500 feathers. Turkey feather were used by Native Americans to stabilize arrows.

* Turkeys have lived in North America for 10 million years

*There was no milk, cheese, bread, butter or pumpkin pie at the original Thanksgiving Day feast.

*The cranberry got its name because the pale pink blossoms on the plant resembled a crane's head and neck. The name craneberry stuck, eventually becoming cranberry.

*Ben Franklin liked the Turkey so much he wanted it to be the official bird of the US.

*A male turkey is called a (tom). The female is called a (hen). The babies are called poults.

*Only male (tom) turkeys gobble. Females (hen) make a clicking noise. The famous gobble is actually a seasonal mating call.

* A tom's gobble can be heard a mile away.

*A hen lays around 115 eggs a month which take about 28 days to hatch.

*Turkeys are known to spend the night in trees!

*Domesticated turkeys cannot fly. Wild turkeys however, can run 20 miles per hour and fly up to 55 miles per hour.

*Turkeys can drown if they look up when it's raining!

*A group of turkeys is called a flock.

*Currently over 670 million turkeys are eaten at Thanksgiving.

*A turkey under 16 weeks of age is called a fryer. A five to seven month old turkey is called a roaster.

*The largest turkey on record was 86 pounds.

*The average person consumes 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day.