184 Fun Facts About Thanksgiving

At the close of America's Thanksgiving Parade, the host mayor hands Santa Claus what?

A key to the city goes to Santa Claus from Detroit's mayor as the broadcast ends; begun in 1924 like Macy's parade, the event is known for giant papier-mâché heads inspired by the carnival in Viareggio, Italy.

Which Pacific island territory of Australia, once a port of call for American whalers, celebrates Thanksgiving on the last Wednesday of November?

Norfolk Island took up Thanksgiving through visiting American whalers: trader Isaac Robinson, their friend and the island's US consul, had All Saints Church in Kingston decorated American-style for the service.

Which Native nation sealed a 1621 alliance with the Pilgrims and joined their first harvest feast?

The Wampanoag made a mutual-defense pact with Plymouth in spring 1621; that autumn about ninety of their men joined the harvest celebration, outnumbering the fifty or so colonists.

Which president, urged on by a magazine editor's letters, proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day?

Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation on October 3, 1863, at the height of the Civil War, setting the last Thursday of November; it answered an editor's long campaign of letters to one president after another.

Which company built Macy's parade balloons in Akron, Ohio, from the 1920s through 1980?

Goodyear, the tire maker, turned a puppeteer's designs into giant rubber balloons at its Akron plant, building the parade's inflatables for more than half a century until 1980.

Which potato dish is a staple side at American Thanksgiving dinners?

Mashed potatoes are a later addition: potatoes had no place at the 1621 feast, since the South American tuber had not yet caught on with the English or reached their colony.

Why does a male turkey gobble loudly each spring?

To attract hens: the spring gobble announces a male to females and to rival males, and in courtship he struts with his tail fanned and his wings drooped.

Which newspaper has printed the same two Pilgrim-themed Thanksgiving editorials every year since 1961?

The Wall Street Journal's two Thanksgiving editorials, 'The Desolate Wilderness' and 'And the Fair Land', both came from editor Vermont Royster, who also gave the paper the editorial it reprints every Christmas.

Which pie is the most iconic Thanksgiving dessert?

Pumpkin pie as we know it came later: Plymouth's colonists had no butter or wheat flour for a crust, and early settlers are said to have cooked the filling inside a hollowed-out pumpkin instead.

Whose nickname for the post-Thanksgiving crowds gave Black Friday its name?

The police used the name for the day after Thanksgiving, when shoppers and traffic swamped their city's downtown; in 1961 merchants tried to rebrand it 'Big Friday', and the gloomier name won anyway.

In what present-day U.S. state did the Pilgrims land and establish Plymouth Colony?

Massachusetts absorbed Plymouth Colony in 1691, when a new royal charter merged it into the Province of Massachusetts Bay; the Pilgrims' settlement had lasted seven decades as a colony of its own.

What is the loose skin hanging from a turkey's neck called?

The wattle is the fleshy flap growing from a turkey's throat; along with the bare skin of his head and neck, it changes colour when a male is excited and displaying for hens.

Since 1947, which industry group has presented the live bird for the White House Thanksgiving ceremony?

The National Turkey Federation began the yearly presentation in 1947 under Harry Truman; for decades presidents simply ate the birds, and sparing them became the custom only later.

Which NFL team has hosted a game on Thanksgiving Day every year since 1945?

The Detroit Lions first hosted in 1934 as a gimmick by owner George A. Richards, whose radio station fed the game to a national network; after a six-year break, they resumed for good in 1945.

Which Patuxet man, who learned English in captivity, interpreted between the Pilgrims and the local sachem's people?

Squanto (Tisquantum) had learned English after being captured and taken to Europe years earlier. He taught the Pilgrims to plant corn and catch fish.

Which nursery rhyme, first published in Boston in 1830, was written by the editor who lobbied for a national Thanksgiving?

'Mary Had a Little Lamb' appeared in the editor's 1830 book Poems for Our Children; in 1877 Thomas Edison recited it to test his new phonograph, making it the first English verse ever recorded.

In what country is Thanksgiving also celebrated, but on the second Monday of October?

Canada once marked Thanksgiving and Armistice Day together, in the week of November 11; the two were split in 1931 to give veterans their own day, and since 1957 Thanksgiving has been fixed on the second Monday of October.

Which US president moved Thanksgiving a week earlier to extend the holiday shopping season?

Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday because November 1939's last Thursday fell on the 30th, leaving a short Christmas shopping season; after years of rival dates, Congress fixed the day by law in 1941.

Spanish settlers and the Timucua shared a thanksgiving meal in 1565, decades before Plymouth, in which present-day state?

Florida's claim rests on Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who invited the Timucua to a meal at St. Augustine after a Mass of thanks for his crew's safe arrival, 56 years before the feast at Plymouth.

Where does a female wild turkey lay her eggs?

On the ground: she lays about a dozen eggs in a shallow hollow hidden under a shrub or in tall grass and incubates them alone for about four weeks.

Which vegetable side dish became a Thanksgiving staple after a Campbell's Soup Company employee created it in 1955?

Green bean casserole was devised in Campbell's test kitchen by Dorcas Reilly from staples most households kept on hand, canned soup and green beans, and was first known as the 'Green Bean Bake'.

What annual event, first held in 1896, takes place on Thanksgiving morning in many American cities?

Turkey trot races fill Thanksgiving morning in many cities, often as charity fundraisers with runners dressed as turkeys; the oldest on record, in Buffalo, has been held since 1896.

What document did the Pilgrims sign aboard ship in 1620 to establish self-governance?

The Mayflower Compact was drawn up because the ship had anchored outside the territory its patent covered, and some passengers declared that no one had power to command them; 41 men signed it before going ashore.

Which state produces the most turkeys in the United States?

Minnesota leads the nation in farm-raised turkeys, and its farms often supply the White House ceremony; the birds presented in 2023 went on to live at the University of Minnesota.

The 1973 Peanuts Thanksgiving television special took home which honor the following year?

An Emmy went to A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving in 1974; in this tenth prime-time Peanuts special, Charlie Brown is about to leave for his grandmother's when unexpected guests invite themselves to a dinner he cannot cook.

In a 1784 letter to his daughter, Benjamin Franklin called which bird "a Bird of bad moral Character"?

Bald eagle, Franklin complained, 'does not get his Living honestly' and is too lazy to fish for himself; he called the turkey 'a much more respectable Bird' but never proposed it as a national symbol.

What nickname is given to the night before Thanksgiving, a big night out for old classmates back in their hometowns?

Blackout Wednesday packs the bars because almost no one works the next day and students are home for the holiday; the name borrows the slang for drinking until memory fails.

Which NFL team, founded in 1960, began hosting an annual Thanksgiving Day game in 1966?

The Dallas Cowboys volunteered when the NFL wanted a second holiday game, because team president Tex Schramm saw the value of a yearly national telecast; apart from 1975 and 1977, they have hosted ever since.

In A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which character acts as chef for the toast-and-popcorn dinner?

Snoopy, helped by Woodstock, sets up a ping-pong table in the yard and serves toast, popcorn, pretzel sticks and jelly beans, since toast is about all Charlie Brown can cook.

Which NPR host made an annual tradition of a cranberry, sour cream and horseradish relish?

Susan Stamberg shared 'Mama Stamberg's' relish on air each Thanksgiving for decades; her mother-in-law had clipped the horseradish-laced recipe by Craig Claiborne from a 1959 newspaper.

What is the fleshy protuberance that hangs over a male turkey's beak called?

The snood is the fleshy red ornament that grows from a male turkey's forehead over his bill; it lengthens and reddens when he struts, and in experiments hens preferred males with longer ones.

Which state claims an earlier first Thanksgiving, held by 38 English settlers at Berkeley Hundred in December 1619?

Virginia's claim rests on settlers who landed on the James River on December 4, 1619; their charter ordered that the day of arrival be kept every year as a day of thanksgiving, two years before Plymouth's feast.

Which sachem signed a 1621 peace treaty with the Pilgrims that lasted more than 50 years?

Massasoit (Ousamequin), whose people had been weakened by epidemics, kept the alliance until his death in 1661; the peace finally collapsed in 1675, in a war led by one of his sons.

What mocking nickname did critics give the 1939 Thanksgiving that the president moved a week early?

Franksgiving stuck as the name for the early date; many states refused to follow, so calendars, holiday plans and football schedules were split between two Thanksgivings until Congress fixed the date.

In which 2013 animated film do two turkeys travel back to 1621 to take their kind off the Thanksgiving menu?

Free Birds stars Owen Wilson as a turkey pardoned by the president and Woody Harrelson as the fellow fowl who recruits him for a time-travel mission to the first Thanksgiving.

Where did most Plymouth colonists shelter during their deadly first winter?

Aboard their ship is where most colonists spent that winter, anchored offshore while the first houses went up; exposure, scurvy and contagious disease killed about half of them before spring.

What lets ripe cranberries float, so growers can flood a bog and corral the crop in one corner?

Air pockets inside each berry make cranberries float, so growers flood the bog, knock the fruit loose with water reels nicknamed 'egg-beaters' and corral the floating crop for collection.

The Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony belonged to which religious movement?

The Pilgrims were Separatists, a subset of Puritans who believed the Church of England was beyond reform and separated from it entirely. They first fled to the Netherlands before sailing to America.

Which annual Thanksgiving Day protest have Native Americans held on Cole's Hill in Plymouth since 1970?

The National Day of Mourning began in 1970, when Frank 'Wamsutta' James was disinvited from a state celebration of 350 years since the Mayflower landed and gave his speech on Cole's Hill instead.

What is the medical term for the "food coma" drowsiness that follows a big holiday meal?

Postprandial somnolence follows any large meal, not only turkey dinners; one leading explanation is that digestion shifts the body into its rest-and-digest mode.

Which president was the first to officially pardon a Thanksgiving turkey, in 1989?

George H.W. Bush made the pardon a permanent part of the ceremony in 1989, his first year in office, sending the bird to live out its days on a farm; the word 'pardon' had first been used as a joke two years earlier.

How long did the first Thanksgiving celebration in 1621 reportedly last?

Three days is the length Edward Winslow recorded: about fifty colonists entertained some ninety Native men, with feasting and 'recreations' that included firing their guns.

What is a turducken, Louisiana's showpiece Thanksgiving roast?

It is a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey: each bird is deboned before nesting, with seasoned filling between the layers, and the name simply runs the three birds together.

Under what name did Macy's Thanksgiving morning procession first march in the 1920s?

Macy's billed its first processions as the 'Christmas Parade' because the event was created to kick off the holiday shopping season; it was later renamed for Thanksgiving Day itself.

Which Abenaki sagamore walked into Plymouth in March 1621 and greeted the colonists in English?

Samoset, a sagamore from Maine, had picked up English from fishermen working the coast; he walked into Plymouth on March 16, 1621, greeted the colonists in English and asked for beer.

The sachem behind the 1621 Plymouth treaty wanted allies against which rival people of present-day Rhode Island?

The Narragansett threatened a people badly weakened by epidemics, so their sachem sought English allies; in return, his help kept Plymouth from starving in its first years.

In the United States, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on which day of November?

Fourth Thursday became the legal date when Congress passed a joint resolution in 1941, ending the years in which the states were split between two rival Thanksgiving dates.

Which shellfish did Edward Winslow report filled Plymouth's bay all summer?

Lobster filled the bay 'all the summer', Winslow wrote, and culinary historians think seafood made up much of the 1621 feast, which had no potatoes and no sugar for sweet sauces.

Macy's first parade balloons were filled with air and propped up on sticks; which gas soon let them float?

Helium soon replaced the air, and for a few years Macy's released the balloons at the finale to drift away, paying a reward to whoever found and returned one.

Which US President first proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving under the new Constitution?

George Washington proclaimed Thursday, November 26, 1789, at the request of Congress; he marked the day by going to church and sending beer and food to New York's imprisoned debtors.

Besides wildfowl, what meat did the ninety Native guests bring to the first harvest feast?

The guests went out and killed five deer, which they presented to the governor and others.

At what level of the sport did an annual Thanksgiving gridiron game first take hold, in 1876?

College football made the holiday game a fixture: Yale and Princeton began meeting on Thanksgiving Day in 1876, decades before any professional league, and by the 1880s the date hosted the college championship game.

Which magazine editor championed the campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday?

Sarah Josepha Hale pressed her case in editorials and in letters to governors and five presidents in turn, earning the nickname 'Mother of Thanksgiving' before the 1863 proclamation made the holiday national.

A 1947 Truman voluntary rationing campaign discouraged eating which foods on Thursdays?

Poultry and eggs were to be skipped on Thursdays to save grain for foreign aid; since Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day all fell on Thursdays that year, the poultry industry protested until a truce was called.

Which turkey brand opened a telephone Turkey Talk-Line for holiday cooks in 1981?

Butterball's Turkey Talk-Line took 11,000 calls in its first season in 1981; its experts were all women until 2013, when the company hired its first men, noting that a quarter of the callers were men.

Why did Macy's stop releasing its parade balloons after 1932?

A balloon nearly downed a plane in 1932, when a novice pilot who tried to snag one almost crashed; Macy's ended the releases, and with them the rewards it had paid for returned balloons.

Which main dish is the most common alternative to turkey at Thanksgiving dinner?

Baked ham shares or takes the centre of many Thanksgiving tables; roast goose and chicken, old European holiday centrepieces, are other occasional stand-ins for the turkey.

Which West African country celebrates Thanksgiving on the first Thursday of November?

Liberia's legislature made the day a national holiday in 1883. The country was founded by freed American slaves, which explains the borrowed tradition.

Which visiting team won the 1934 game that began the NFL's oldest Thanksgiving hosting tradition?

The Chicago Bears won 19–16 before 26,000 fans; the home owner had the game carried live on a national radio network, and the fixture he invented as a gimmick became a yearly tradition.

Henry Hall began cranberry farming after noticing wild vines grew better when what blew over them?

Sand drifting over the Cape Cod veteran's wild vines made them thrive, so around 1816 he began transplanting vines and spreading sand over them on purpose, and other growers soon copied him.

Which company's theme parks hosted the White House's pardoned turkeys as parade grand marshals from 2005 to 2009?

Disney sent the pardoned birds to Disneyland or Walt Disney World from 2005 to 2009 to serve as honorary grand marshals of its Thanksgiving Day parade; before that they retired to a farm park outside the capital.

Which president first joked about 'pardoning' his Thanksgiving turkey, two years before the pardon became an official ceremony?

Ronald Reagan floated the idea in 1987 to deflect reporters asking whether he would pardon Oliver North over the Iran-Contra affair; the turkey, Charlie, was already bound for a petting zoo.

Which shellfish is the defining ingredient of one traditional Thanksgiving bread filling for the bird?

Oysters go into one traditional filling for the Thanksgiving bird; in the nineteenth century they were plentiful and cheap in America, an everyday food that cooks worked into the holiday turkey.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was suspended for several years during which major global conflict?

World War II halted the parade from 1942 to 1944, because the rubber in its giant balloons was needed for the war effort; the procession returned in 1945.

What did 'American Cookery' (1796) first suggest serving alongside roast turkey?

Amelia Simmons's 1796 book, the first cookbook written by an American, suggests serving roast turkey with cranberry sauce, the earliest printed mention of the pairing.

What name did the Pilgrims give the Mayflower passengers who were not members of their congregation?

Strangers were the merchants, craftsmen, servants and orphans who sailed alongside the congregation; their threat to go their own way once ashore pushed the leaders to bind everyone to a single government.

Which team, whose owner had lobbied for decades, hosted the third Thanksgiving game the NFL added in 2006?

The Chiefs' owner, Lamar Hunt, had lobbied the NFL for 37 years for a holiday game in Kansas City; he listened by phone from a hospital bed as his team beat Denver 19-10, and died weeks later.

Which sachem, known to the English as King Philip, led a 1675-76 war against the colonists?

Metacom became sachem in 1662 after his brother Wamsutta, marched to Plymouth at gunpoint for questioning, sickened and died; Metacom claimed the English had poisoned him, one grievance behind the war.

Which cartoonist created Peanuts, the comic strip behind the 1973 special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving?

Charles M. Schulz drew Peanuts by himself for nearly 50 years, without assistants even after his hand developed a tremor, and died the night before his final strip was published.

Congress proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving in 1777, soon after a British army surrendered where?

Saratoga: General Burgoyne's surrender there in October 1777 persuaded France to enter the war as an American ally; the Continental Congress set December 18 as a day of thanksgiving for all 13 states.

Which brand introduced the TV dinner, a frozen turkey meal in a foil tray, in the 1950s?

Swanson executive Gerry Thomas said the idea came from unsold Thanksgiving turkeys riding the rails in refrigerated boxcars; a former colleague says he had nothing to do with the dinner, and he later called the railcars 'a metaphor'.

Which president sent the turkey presented to him in 1963 back to its farm with the words "let this one grow"?

John F. Kennedy spared the 55-pound bird although a sign around its neck read 'Good Eating, Mr. President'; a Los Angeles Times headline called it a presidential pardon, a word he never used.

Which orange-fleshed root gets buried under marshmallows and candied at Thanksgiving?

Sweet potatoes belong to the morning glory family and are only distant relatives of the potato; the soft orange kind that Americans call yams are not true yams either.

Plymouth colonist John Howland survived the 1620 ocean crossing after what mishap during a storm?

Fell overboard and grabbed a rope: Howland caught the topsail halyards trailing in the sea and held on, deep under water, until the crew hauled him in with a boat hook; millions of Americans now descend from him.

What year did the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade first have a national television broadcast?

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade had its first network television broadcast in 1948.

Which child actress played Susan, the girl who doubts Santa, in a 1947 holiday classic that opens at the Macy's parade?

Natalie Wood was eight when she played the girl who questions whether Santa Claus exists; her first starring role, it made her a star years before Rebel Without a Cause and West Side Story.

Which state grows more than half of America's cranberries, far ahead of second-place Massachusetts?

Wisconsin grew roughly 59 percent of the 2020 U.S. crop; its 2021 harvest was forecast at 4.7 million barrels against 2.1 million for Massachusetts, where cranberry farming began.

Corn, beans and which other plant make up the 'three sisters' of Native American agriculture?

Squash completes the trio: its broad leaves shade the soil, holding moisture and smothering weeds, while corn stalks give the beans a pole to climb and the beans add nitrogen.

The NFL rebranded its Thanksgiving Day games in 2022 to honor which legendary coach and broadcaster?

John Madden called 20 Thanksgiving games from the booth; since 2022 each game's standout is named a Madden Player of the Game, and $10,000 goes in that player's name to a youth football program.

Which character was the first-ever giant balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?

Felix the Cat came first, but not overhead: handlers marched him down Broadway propped up on poles, before the parade's balloons could float.

The second presidential Thanksgiving proclamation, in 1795, gave thanks for the suppression of which uprising?

The Whiskey Rebellion had collapsed in late 1794 when some 13,000 militia marched into western Pennsylvania; the proclamation set Thursday, February 19, 1795, to give thanks that the insurrection was over.

Which naturally occurring carbohydrate in cranberries makes the classic holiday condiment set into a gel?

Pectin, a carbohydrate naturally abundant in cranberries, forms a gel when heated with sugar, which is why the canned version holds its can-shaped ridges.

Before 1863, Thanksgiving was mainly a regional observance rooted in which part of the country?

New England governors proclaimed a thanksgiving every year, and from the 1810s the custom spread to other states one by one, decades before the 1863 proclamation made it national.

Which Southern corn-syrup custard pie is a fixture of the Thanksgiving dessert table?

Pecan pie owes much of its fame to Karo: the syrup maker says the recipe was born in the 1930s as a 'new use for corn syrup', and it still calls the classic version Karo Pie.

Thanksgiving belongs to what worldwide family of autumn celebrations?

Thanksgiving Day began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year, similar to various harvest festival holidays throughout the world.

Which city's Thanksgiving Day parade, launched in 1920, is the oldest in the United States?

Philadelphia's parade began as a Gimbels department store promotion: floats and marchers went down Market Street, and the finale had Santa Claus arriving at the store's toy department to open the shopping season.

In Hawaii, Thanksgiving ties into which traditional thanksgiving season, November to January?

Makahiki feasts featured roast pork, fish, and nuts, echoing the harvest-thanks spirit of the mainland holiday.

What leaky companion ship was meant to sail to America with the Mayflower but was abandoned in England?

The Speedwell twice turned back leaking; the colony's future governor wrote that her master and crew, hired to stay a year in America, staged the leaks to escape the contract.

Which hard-kernelled maize variety, often called Indian corn, is used decoratively at Thanksgiving?

Flint corn takes its name from each kernel's hard, flint-like outer shell that protects a soft endosperm; Native Americans cultivated it long before Europeans arrived.

Who was the English governor of Plymouth Colony during the 1621 harvest celebration?

William Bradford had held the office only since that April, when John Carver came in from working his field on a hot day, fell ill and died; the colony then re-elected Bradford nearly every year.

In which 1947 film does Kris Kringle play Santa Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?

Miracle on 34th Street has Kris Kringle so convincing in the parade that Macy's hires him as its store Santa; despite the Christmas story, the film opened in June 1947.

Classic turkey gravy starts with pan drippings and which cooked paste of flour and fat?

Roux, flour cooked in fat, is what thickens the drippings and stock into gravy; the name is French for 'browned', from the butter it was first made with.

The old English name 'fenberry' for the European cranberry refers to what kind of terrain?

Marshland: a fen is low, boggy ground, where the wild berries grew in England; 'cranberry' itself is an Americanism from the 1640s, borrowed from the Low German for 'crane berry'.

What is a baby turkey called?

A poult is a young turkey; it leaves the nest within about a day of hatching and feeds itself from the start, while the hen broods it at night for its first weeks.

Norman Rockwell's painting of a family Thanksgiving dinner, published in 1943, illustrates which of the Four Freedoms?

Freedom from Want ran in the Saturday Evening Post in 1943 after the government had turned down Rockwell's offer to paint the series; the four pictures then became the centerpiece of a huge war bond drive.

Whose 18-minute talking blues 'Alice's Restaurant' became a Thanksgiving radio ritual?

Arlo Guthrie's 1967 'Alice's Restaurant Massacree' recounts his arrest for littering after a Thanksgiving 1965 dinner in Stockbridge, an episode that, in the song, gets him rejected by the draft board.

In which Dutch city did the Pilgrims live before sailing for America?

Leiden gave the Pilgrims about a dozen years of refuge and work in its cloth trades, but they left fearing their children were growing up Dutch and losing their English identity.

The Mayflower was bound for land near the mouth of which river when shoals off Cape Cod turned it back?

Hudson: the river mouth then lay within the Virginia Company's grant; forced back, the ship anchored at the tip of Cape Cod, and the colonists settled outside the territory their patent covered.

Before 'wishbone' caught on in America, what did English speakers call a bird's forked bone?

Merrythought, recorded from the early 1600s, was named for the game itself: two people pulled the bone apart to see who came away with the longer piece.

What does the cornucopia, often seen as a Thanksgiving decoration, traditionally symbolize?

Abundance and prosperity: in the best-known Greek telling the horn broke off the goat that nursed the infant Zeus and then filled with whatever its owner wished; the Latin name means 'horn of plenty'.

Which growers' cooperative, founded in 1930, is known for its cranberry juice and canned sauce?

Ocean Spray began in 1930 when three cranberry growers joined forces to reach a bigger market than they could alone; about 700 farm families now own the cooperative.

Which Korean harvest holiday, often called Korean Thanksgiving, falls on the eighth lunar month's full moon?

Chuseok, on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, sends Koreans home to tend ancestral graves and share songpyeon, half-moon rice cakes.

In Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which actor plays shower-curtain-ring salesman Del Griffith?

John Candy plays Del Griffith, the shower-curtain-ring salesman stuck with Steve Martin's Neal Page as both struggle to get home for Thanksgiving in John Hughes's 1987 comedy.

The tribal name Wampanoag is usually translated as 'People of the' what?

People of the First Light is how the Wampanoag themselves translate the name, fitting a nation whose homeland on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket faces the Atlantic sunrise.

Which part of the Pilgrim costume in popular images is a later invention?

Buckles on Pilgrim hats and shoes are a later artists' touch; estate inventories show the colonists also owned violet, green and red clothing, not just black and white.

Before carrying the Pilgrims, the Mayflower spent years hauling English cloth to France and bringing back which cargo?

Wine: master Christopher Jones ran the ship across the Channel with English woolens and came home with French wine, so on its one voyage to America the passengers themselves were the cargo.

Which comedian debuted 'The Thanksgiving Song' on Saturday Night Live in 1992?

Adam Sandler debuted it on Weekend Update in November 1992, when anchor Kevin Nealon introduced it as the first of a planned yearly tradition of holiday songs written by a different cast member each Thanksgiving.

What are the heart, liver, gizzard and neck packed inside a store-bought turkey called?

Giblets are the heart, liver, gizzard and neck usually bagged inside the bird's cavity; cooks simmer them for stock and giblet gravy.

Which professional soldier, hired by the Pilgrims, commanded Plymouth Colony's defenses?

Myles Standish, an English soldier who had served in Holland, was hired as the colony's military captain; he placed its cannons, oversaw the building of its fort and led its armed expeditions.

Where do wild turkeys usually spend the night?

In trees: wild turkeys fly up at dusk to roost on high branches out of reach of ground predators, picking the largest trees they can find; they see poorly in the dark.

Which Roman goddess was often shown with a cornucopia and a ship's rudder?

Fortuna, goddess of luck, carried the horn for the gifts she handed out and the rudder because she steered the course of people's lives; a ball or wheel showed how quickly luck could turn.

Which president refused to proclaim days of thanksgiving, citing the separation of church and state?

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1808 that the Constitution barred the federal government from meddling in religious exercises, and proclaimed no thanksgivings; James Madison revived the practice in 1814.

Which state grows most of the pumpkins that end up canned for American pies?

Illinois harvested about 533 million pounds of pumpkins in 2025, more than the next four states combined, and unlike theirs most of its acreage is grown for canning rather than carving.

Who was the first English child born in New England, aboard the Mayflower in 1620?

Peregrine White was born aboard ship in Provincetown Harbor in late November 1620, weeks after another baby arrived in mid-ocean; when he died at 83, his obituary called him 'the First Englishman born in New-England'.

In the old wishbone custom, the winner of the pull was said to do what first?

Marry: dictionaries record two prizes for the winner, a first wedding or a granted wish; only the wish survived, and it gave the bone its modern name.

Which sitcom's Thanksgiving episodes include Monica wearing a raw turkey on her head?

Friends aired a Thanksgiving episode almost every season; in 1998's 'The One with All the Thanksgivings', Monica dons a raw turkey, sunglasses and a fez to make Chandler laugh.

What name did a retail trade group coin in 2005 for the Monday after Thanksgiving?

Cyber Monday was coined in 2005 by the National Retail Federation's Shop.org after it noticed online sales spiking the Monday after Thanksgiving, as workers shopped from office computers.

In 1997, high winds pushed which Macy's parade balloon into a lamppost, badly injuring a spectator?

The Cat in the Hat balloon knocked part of a lamppost into the crowd, leaving one spectator in a coma for nearly a month; the next year's parade capped balloon sizes, retiring the Cat for good.

In 'Turkeys Away', a 1978 sitcom episode, which radio station dropped live turkeys from a helicopter?

WKRP in Cincinnati's 'Turkeys Away' ends with newsman Les Nessman describing turkeys hitting the ground 'like sacks of wet cement' and manager Arthur Carlson's line, 'As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.'

Which item from the passengers' cargo raised the Mayflower's cracked main beam in mid-Atlantic?

An iron screw brought from Holland by the passengers jacked the buckled beam back up; with a post wedged under it, the crew judged the ship sound and pressed on rather than turn back.

Which 1986 Woody Allen film is framed by three consecutive Thanksgiving dinners?

Hannah and Her Sisters begins and ends at family Thanksgiving dinners two years apart; in between, Hannah's husband falls into an affair with her sister Lee, who breaks it off at the middle one.

Turkey tetrazzini, a leftover classic, is named after a star of which art form?

Opera: the dish honors Italian soprano Luisa Tetrazzini, who on Christmas Eve 1910 sang free in the street at Lotta's Fountain in San Francisco to a crowd put at 250,000.

In what year did the NFL, then called the APFA, play its first Thanksgiving Day games?

The APFA, renamed the NFL in 1922, scheduled Thanksgiving games in its first season, 1920, copying college football, which had played holiday games since the 1870s.

What is the tuft of bristle-like feathers on a male turkey's chest called?

The beard is a cluster of stiff, hair-like feathers hanging from a tom's chest that grows longer with age; hunters measure it to gauge a bird's maturity.

The only other turkey species, the ocellated turkey, lives on which peninsula?

Yucatán: the ocellated turkey takes its name from the eye-shaped spots, or ocelli, near the tips of its tail feathers, and lives only on the peninsula and in nearby parts of Belize and Guatemala.

Long before it meant shopping, the nickname of the day after Thanksgiving described an 1869 panic in which market?

Gold: on September 24, 1869, the price collapsed after Jay Gould and Jim Fisk tried to corner the market with help from President Grant's brother-in-law, and Grant ordered government gold sold.

Which prize did a CBS analyst begin handing to the Thanksgiving game's best player in 1989?

The Turkey Leg Award began when the analyst said the game's star deserved a drumstick instead of a trophy; a Texas barbecue owner later built him a six-legged turkey so more winners could share.

Which actress directed the 1995 Thanksgiving family comedy Home for the Holidays?

Jodie Foster directed Home for the Holidays (1995), in which Holly Hunter flies home to Baltimore for a chaotic family Thanksgiving, with Robert Downey Jr. as her brother.

How many passengers did the Mayflower carry across the Atlantic in 1620?

102 passengers crossed with a crew of 20 to 30; because the ship was built to carry cargo, they lived packed together in the dark, low space between its decks for 66 days.

Which common kitchen step does the USDA advise against taking with a raw turkey before cooking it?

Washing it: rinsing splashes bacteria from the raw bird onto the sink, counters and other food, and only cooking the meat to an internal 165°F actually kills them.

Which Caribbean island nation, home of the twin Piton peaks, celebrates Thanksgiving on the first Monday in October?

Saint Lucia keeps Thanksgiving Day on the first Monday in October; Britain and France fought over the island so often that it was nicknamed the 'Helen of the West Indies'.

Grenada's Thanksgiving Day on October 25 marks the anniversary of what?

The 1983 US-led invasion, Operation Urgent Fury, began on October 25 after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was deposed and executed by a military faction of his own party; Grenada keeps the date as Thanksgiving Day.

Whose 1578 voyage do some historians count as North America's first Thanksgiving?

Martin Frobisher's crew held a service of thanks in 1578 at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island after surviving the crossing; he was searching for the Northwest Passage.

The turkey's genus name, Meleagris, was the Greek word for which other bird?

Meleagris was the Greek name for the guinea fowl; Linnaeus gave it to the turkey in 1758, an echo of the mix-up that had already put 'turkey', once a word for the African bird, on the American one.

Which famous Muppet wears a costume built from the tail feathers of real turkeys?

Big Bird's suit uses turkey tail feathers picked by a specialist feather company, whose owner calls the costume his "toughest customer" because so few plumes arrive clean enough.

Which president kept a raccoon named Rebecca as a pet after it was sent to be Thanksgiving dinner?

Calvin Coolidge had never eaten raccoon and had no appetite to try it, so in 1926 Rebecca moved into the White House, where she liked to nestle in his lap by the fireplace.

Which Jewish holiday's first day landed on Thanksgiving in 2013, an overlap last seen in 1888?

Hanukkah met Thanksgiving in a mash-up nicknamed "Thanksgivukkah", and a nine-year-old raised over $48,000 to make a turkey-shaped menorah called the menurkey.

Which dance troupe, famous for its eye-high kicks, has performed at the Macy's parade every Thanksgiving since 1957?

The Rockettes are the house troupe of Radio City Music Hall, and their parade routine is traditionally the last performance before the procession itself arrives.

Which amino acid in turkey is popularly, but wrongly, blamed for the sleepiness that follows Thanksgiving dinner?

Tryptophan takes the blame, yet turkey holds no more of it than other poultry. The likelier cause is a heavy meal rich in carbohydrates, which nudges the brain toward sleep.

Indigenous peoples of which modern country first domesticated the turkey, more than 2,000 years ago?

Mexico is where turkeys were first tamed, from at least 800 BC. Spanish ships carried the birds to Europe in the 16th century, and today's farm turkeys descend from that stock.

Which television network has been the official broadcaster of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade since 1953?

NBC's first parade telecast was an experimental local broadcast on its station W2XBS, the forerunner of today's WNBC, years before the network took it nationwide.

Across North America, what name do farmers and hunters give to an adult male turkey?

Tom is the usual North American term for the male. Cross the Atlantic and it changes: in the United Kingdom and Ireland, male turkeys are called stags.

Which Thanksgiving-inspired word, first seen online in 2007, was added to Merriam-Webster's dictionary in 2020?

Friendsgiving blends "friends" and "Thanksgiving" for an informal meal shared with pals instead of relatives, though the custom itself is decades older than the word.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade finishes outside the company's flagship store at which Manhattan landmark?

Herald Square has been the finish line from the very first parade, when store employees in vibrant costumes marched to the flagship Macy's there.

The very first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade featured live animals borrowed from which zoo?

Central Park Zoo lent the animals, which paraded alongside floats, professional bands and store employees in costume.

Which annual canine competition has aired right after the Macy's parade broadcast every Thanksgiving since 2002?

The National Dog Show took the slot after It's a Wonderful Life drew weak ratings there. A network executive reasoned that pets are part of the family at holiday gatherings.

Which comedian plays Neal Page, the uptight ad executive racing home for Thanksgiving in Planes, Trains and Automobiles?

Steve Martin's Neal Page sets out two days before the holiday, and a snowstorm turns his quick flight home to Chicago into a cross-country ordeal with a chatty stranger.

Eli Roth's 2023 slasher film Thanksgiving grew out of a fake trailer he made for which 2007 double feature?

Grindhouse showed Roth's spoof trailer in 2007, and plans for a full-length version began soon after, though the finished film took another 16 years to reach cinemas.

In Addams Family Values, Wednesday plays which historical figure in a summer-camp play about the first Thanksgiving?

Pocahontas died in 1617, three years before the Pilgrims sailed, so the Camp Chippewa play has shaky history even before Wednesday goes off script.

Which sitcom's 2007 episode "Slapsgiving" has Marshall counting down to a Thanksgiving slap he is owed?

How I Met Your Mother had Marshall build a countdown website to torment Barney, until Lily, as Slap Bet Commissioner, banned slapping at her holiday table.

In The Simpsons' "Bart vs. Thanksgiving", Bart runs away after destroying which relative's handmade table centerpiece?

Lisa built it as a tribute to trailblazing American women. Bart moved it to make room for the turkey, and in the scuffle it landed in the fireplace and burned.

In A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which friend phones Charlie Brown and invites herself to dinner at his house?

Peppermint Patty, whose father is out of town, then adds Marcie and Franklin to the guest list, and later fumes that the meal is not a traditional one.

Which sitcom's 1986 episode "Thanksgiving Orphans" ends with the whole cast in an all-out food fight?

Cheers sent the gang to Carla's new house for a potluck that collapsed into chaos. TV Guide later ranked it seventh on its list of the 100 greatest episodes of all time.

Viewers of the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade were pranked by a surprise performance of which 1987 hit?

Never Gonna Give You Up was sung by Rick Astley himself, who rickrolled millions of television viewers from a Cartoon Network float.

Which actor won an Oscar as a blind retired colonel who visits his brother's Thanksgiving dinner in Scent of a Woman?

Al Pacino took Best Actor as Frank Slade, a cantankerous veteran minded over the holiday weekend by a prep-school student hired as his companion.

Which Jets quarterback ran into his own lineman's backside and fumbled on Thanksgiving night in 2012?

Mark Sanchez collided with teammate Brandon Moore, and the Patriots ran the loose ball back for a touchdown in a play known ever since as the Butt Fumble.

On which San Francisco Bay island do Indigenous people meet before dawn each Thanksgiving for a Sunrise Ceremony?

Alcatraz has hosted the event, also called Unthanksgiving Day, every year since 1975. It recalls the 1969 occupation of the island by the activist group Indians of All Tribes.

Which president signed the 1870 law that first made Thanksgiving a federal holiday in the nation's capital?

Ulysses S. Grant signed the Holidays Act, which set Thanksgiving beside New Year's Day, Independence Day and Christmas as the original four federal holidays.

Which Secretary of State, later famous for buying Alaska, drafted the 1863 proclamation of a national Thanksgiving?

William Seward proposed a national day of thanks to the president and wrote the text himself, so the proclamation that made the holiday national was ghostwritten.

Astronauts aboard which space station became the first crew to celebrate Thanksgiving in orbit, in 1973?

Skylab's crew spent the holiday at work: two astronauts made a spacewalk of more than six hours while commander Gerald Carr waited inside with no access to food.

Which global day of charitable donations, launched in 2012 at Manhattan's 92nd Street Y, follows Thanksgiving weekend?

Giving Tuesday was started by Henry Timms and has been praised as an antithesis of consumer culture, arriving just after the year's biggest shopping days.

Which financial company created Small Business Saturday, first held two days after Thanksgiving in 2010?

American Express launched the day with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to steer holiday shoppers toward neighborhood stores, and registered the name as its trademark.

Unlike the heavy birds raised on farms, wild turkeys are surprisingly agile and fast at which activity?

Flying comes easily to wild turkeys despite their weight. They usually stay close to the ground, yet at twilight they head up into the trees to roost for the night.

In which sport is a run of three consecutive strikes known as a "turkey"?

Bowling has names for longer streaks too: six strikes in a row is a "wild turkey" and nine is a "golden turkey".

The French word for turkey, "dinde", is a contraction of a phrase meaning "chicken from" which country?

India got the credit because Europeans long mistook the New World for eastern Asia, and the Turkish name for the bird, "hindi", makes the same slip.

Which vegetarian holiday roast was introduced in 1995 by Turtle Island Foods of Hood River, Oregon?

Tofurky came from founder Seth Tibbott, who had turned vegetarian as a student. The name now covers the company's sausages, deli slices and jerky as well.

Which boxed bread-crumb mix did General Foods introduce in 1972 as a quick stand-in for a Thanksgiving turkey's filling?

Stove Top was invented by home economist Ruth Siems, who worked out the breadcrumb size that soaks up water in minutes. By 2005 its maker sold about 60 million boxes around Thanksgiving alone.

Which French red wine, released each November weeks after harvest, is sold in America as a Thanksgiving drink?

Beaujolais Nouveau is fermented for only a few weeks, and since 1985 French rules have fixed a single release day, when bottles go on sale at one minute past midnight.

Which hymn, a Thanksgiving staple in American churches, began as a 1597 Dutch song celebrating a victory over Spain?

We Gather Together was written by Adrianus Valerius after the Battle of Turnhout, and Americans often sing it at the family table as well as in church.

What is the name for removing a turkey's backbone and flattening the bird so it roasts faster?

Spatchcocking is a specific form of butterflying, and the thinner, flatter bird that results cooks more evenly than a whole one.

In one Greek myth, the first cornucopia was a horn broken from which animal, the nurse of the infant Zeus?

A goat named Amalthea fed the baby god with her milk in a cave on Crete. In play he snapped off one of her horns, and the Greeks called the cornucopia the horn of Amalthea.

Which turkey breed is the standard bird of large industrial farms and so the most widely eaten in America?

Broad Breasted White birds have been bred so large that the males cannot mate naturally. The turkey a president pardons each November is usually one of them.

Which puppeteer designed the giant animal balloons that became the signature of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?

Tony Sarg had worked with marionettes since boyhood, and Macy's first asked him to design a shop-window display of a parade before he scaled his creatures up.

Which Puerto Rican plantain dish is often used to stuff the island's Thanksgiving turkey?

Mofongo goes inside the bird, and the island's holiday table is rounded out with rice and pigeon peas, root tamales and potato salad.

Which East Coast city's families of German descent traditionally serve sauerkraut alongside the Thanksgiving turkey?

Baltimore owes the custom to its residents of German and Eastern European descent, and the tangy cabbage turns up on holiday tables in neighboring states too.

Which side dish of sweet corn and lima beans is a traditional part of many Thanksgiving dinners in the Northeast?

Succotash was made from ingredients unknown in Europe when colonists arrived, and its name comes from an Indigenous word for corn kernels.

Geese form a gaggle and crows a murder, but what is the collective noun for a flock of turkeys?

A rafter is the dictionary term for a flock of turkeys, though the same word is far better known as a sloping roof beam.

Which outdoor-gear retailer closed every store on the day after Thanksgiving 2015 and urged shoppers to #OptOutside?

REI gave all its employees a paid day off and even paused online order processing, sitting out what had been one of its ten best sales days of the year.

Which protest day, promoted by Adbusters magazine, has been timed for the day after American Thanksgiving since 1997?

Buy Nothing Day was created by artist Ted Dave. When Adbusters made a television commercial for it in the late 1990s, most stations refused to air it.

Which jazz pianist composed the music for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and the earlier Peanuts Christmas special?

Vince Guaraldi recorded the Thanksgiving score with his quintet, and he also suggested the muted trombone that stands in for adult voices in the Peanuts specials.

Which open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon and Mornay sauce was created at a Louisville hotel in 1926?

The Hot Brown is named for the Brown Hotel, where chef Fred Schmidt built it on sliced roast turkey at a time when the meat was usually reserved for holiday feasts.

Which oral-history nonprofit launched the National Day of Listening in 2008, held on the Friday after Thanksgiving?

StoryCorps chose the date because families are more likely to be in one place then, and it archives the recorded interviews at the Library of Congress.

Which sports league introduced a televised "Thanksgiving Showdown" on the Friday after the holiday in 2011?

The NHL added the Friday afternoon fixture as part of a decade-long television deal, giving hockey a holiday-weekend showcase of its own.

Which made-for-television golf event was a Thanksgiving weekend fixture every year from 1983 to 2008?

The Skins Game was abandoned during the late-2000s recession, after a quarter of a century as a holiday-weekend tradition.