Thanksgiving Facts & Trivia
Thanksgiving Day is an important day in the United States and there are many things that are especially related to the celebrations of the Thanksgiving Day.
Did you know...
1. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States.
2. The pilgrims arrived in North America on the 'Mayflower' from Great Britain in December 1620.
3. The drink that the Puritans brought with them in the Mayflower was the beer.
4. The Wampanoag Indians taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate the land.
5. By the fall of 1621 only half of the pilgrims had survived. Thankful to be alive and in celebration of an abundant harvest they decided to have a feast.
6. The pilgrim leader, Governor William Bradford, organized the first Thanksgiving feast in the Autumn of 1621 and invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians to the feast, which lasted three days.
7. President George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in 1789.
8. The state of New York officially made Thanksgiving Day an annual traditional custom in 1817.
9. Abraham Lincoln officially set aside the last Thursday of November as the national day for Thanksgiving.
10. Franklin D. Roosevelt restored the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the year 1939 so as to make the Christmas shopping season longer and stimulate the economy of the state.
11. Congress passed an official proclamation in 1941 and declared that Thanksgiving would be observed as an annual legal holiday on the fourth Thursday of November.
12. The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade tradition began in the 1920's.
13. 91% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving.