Now that there are six days until Thanksgiving, most people are more than likely looking forward to seeing friends and family, eating as much food as possible and missing an extra few days of school. In honor of this lovely holiday, here are 10 interesting facts about Turkey Day that aren’t already known.
1- The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days. Plymouth pilgrims and Wamparioag Indians celebrated the holiday in Plymouth, Mass.
2- Mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies, milk, corn on the cob and cranberries were not present at the first Thanksgiving.
3- Although Thanksgiving is widely thought to be an American holiday, it is also celebrated in Canada. Instead of celebrating it on the fourth Thursday in November, like America does, Canadians celebrate the second Monday in October.
4- The pilgrims didn’t use forks. They ate with spoons, knives and their fingers.
5- Sarah Josepha Hale is credited as the person who made Thanksgiving a national holiday. After 20 years and five presidents of trying, she was able to persuade Abraham Lincoln into making Thanksgiving a national holiday.
6- Only half of the people on the Mayflower were pilgrims. The other 51 people were just grabbing a cheap ride to the New World.
7- Due to white meat being the most popular part of a turkey, turkeys have been bred to have abnormally huge breasts. Current-day female turkeys have been bred to have such large breasts that they are now barely able to mate because their breasts get in the way of the male mounting the female. Artificial insemination is now used to get female turkeys pregnant.
8- While most may think of Puritans as strict religious people, there was a lot of alcohol at the first Thanksgiving. There was beer, brandy, gin and wine. The Purtians actually loaded more beer on the Mayflower than they did water. This is where the idea for the modern-day Caribbean cruise came from. Just kidding.
9- The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade used to use live animals instead of floats. The first float was sponsored by Goodyear and was shaped like a cat. Before the floats were introduced, Macy’s used animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo.
10.The night before Thanksgiving is better for bar sales than any other night of the year. Yes, that means it beats both New Year’s and St. Patrick’s Day.