Thanksgiving
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184 free Thanksgiving trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
144 free Thanksgiving trivia questions with answers. Think you know everything about Thanksgiving? From the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag peoples 1621 harvest feast to the presidential turkey pardon and the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade, this holiday is packed with fascinating history and traditions. Put your knowledge to the test with 184 questions covering Thanksgiving history, food, culture, sports, and surprising facts that might just stump even the biggest trivia buffs.
30 of 184 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01At the close of America's Thanksgiving Parade, the host mayor hands Santa Claus what?
A key to the city
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.
Q 02Which Pacific island territory of Australia, once a port of call for American whalers, celebrates Thanksgiving on the last Wednesday of November?
Norfolk Island
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.
Q 03Which Native nation sealed a 1621 alliance with the Pilgrims and joined their first harvest feast?
Wampanoag
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.
Q 04Which president, urged on by a magazine editor's letters, proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day?
Abraham Lincoln
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.
Q 05Which company built Macy's parade balloons in Akron, Ohio, from the 1920s through 1980?
Goodyear
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.
Q 06Which potato dish is a staple side at American Thanksgiving dinners?
Mashed potatoes
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.
Q 07Why does a male turkey gobble loudly each spring?
To attract hens
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.
Q 08Which newspaper has printed the same two Pilgrim-themed Thanksgiving editorials every year since 1961?
The Wall Street Journal
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.
Q 09Which pie is the most iconic Thanksgiving dessert?
Pumpkin pie
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.
Q 10Whose nickname for the post-Thanksgiving crowds gave Black Friday its name?
The police
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.
Q 11In what present-day U.S. state did the Pilgrims land and establish Plymouth Colony?
Massachusetts
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.
Q 12What is the loose skin hanging from a turkey's neck called?
Wattle
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.
Q 13Since 1947, which industry group has presented the live bird for the White House Thanksgiving ceremony?
National Turkey Federation
Q 21Which vegetable side dish became a Thanksgiving staple after a Campbell's Soup Company employee created it in 1955?
Green bean casserole
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'.
Q 22What annual event, first held in 1896, takes place on Thanksgiving morning in many American cities?
Turkey trot
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.
Q 23What document did the Pilgrims sign aboard ship in 1620 to establish self-governance?
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.
Q 14Which NFL team has hosted a game on Thanksgiving Day every year since 1945?
Detroit Lions
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.
Q 15Which Patuxet man, who learned English in captivity, interpreted between the Pilgrims and the local sachem's people?
Squanto
Squanto (Tisquantum) had learned English after being captured and taken to Europe years earlier. He taught the Pilgrims to plant corn and catch fish.
Q 16Which nursery rhyme, first published in Boston in 1830, was written by the editor who lobbied for a national Thanksgiving?
Mary Had a Little Lamb
'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.
Q 17In what country is Thanksgiving also celebrated, but on the second Monday of October?
Canada
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.
Q 18Which US president moved Thanksgiving a week earlier to extend the holiday shopping season?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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.
Q 19Spanish settlers and the Timucua shared a thanksgiving meal in 1565, decades before Plymouth, in which present-day state?
Florida
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.
Q 20Where does a female wild turkey lay her eggs?
On the ground
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.
Mayflower Compact
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.
Q 24Which state produces the most turkeys in the United States?
Minnesota
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.
Q 25The 1973 Peanuts Thanksgiving television special took home which honor the following year?
An Emmy
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.
Q 26In a 1784 letter to his daughter, Benjamin Franklin called which bird "a Bird of bad moral Character"?
Bald eagle
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.
Q 27What nickname is given to the night before Thanksgiving, a big night out for old classmates back in their hometowns?
Blackout Wednesday
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.
Q 28Which NFL team, founded in 1960, began hosting an annual Thanksgiving Day game in 1966?
Dallas Cowboys
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.
Q 29In A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which character acts as chef for the toast-and-popcorn dinner?
Snoopy
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.
Q 30Which NPR host made an annual tradition of a cranberry, sour cream and horseradish relish?
Susan Stamberg
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.