Thanksgiving is an annual holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the USA. It is one of the most popular holidays after Christmas. Families gather together for an afternoon of food and football.
Ten interesting facts about Thanksgiving
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The first Thanksgiving dates back to 1621, when the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast.
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Their Thanksgiving meal lasted three days.
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In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
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The author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Sarah Josepha Hale, was key in getting Thanksgiving officially recognized as a national holiday.
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Every year the President of the United States , will pardon a turkey, which spares the bird’s life and ensures that it will spend the duration of its life roaming freely on farmland.
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According to historians, the food that the pilgrims ate at the first Thanksgiving could have included venison, seal, eels, wild fowl, beans, corn, chestnuts, walnuts, grapes and plums.
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Today the most popular Thanksgiving dishes include turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes,cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.
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Three towns in the U.S. take their name from the traditional Thanksgiving bird, including Turkey, Texas; Turkey Creek, Louisiana; and Turkey, North Carolina.
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An estimated 46 million turkeys are eaten on Thanksgiving
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The five most popular ways to serve leftover turkey is as a sandwich, in stew, chili or soup, casseroles and as a burger.
