Thanksgiving is one of the biggest holidays in the United States, celebrated with family, football and a giant roast turkey on the fourth Thursday of November. Canada has its own Thanksgiving too. Here are 14 facts about Thanksgiving and how it began.
1The first Thanksgiving was in 1621.
In autumn 1621, the Pilgrims who had sailed on the Mayflower held a three-day harvest feast at Plymouth Colony, in what is now Massachusetts. Around 90 Wampanoag men, led by Massasoit, joined them.
2Nobody knows if they ate turkey.
The only first-hand account mentions “fowl” and five deer brought by the Wampanoag. The wild birds may have included turkey, but also ducks and geese.
3The writer of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” campaigned for it.
Sarah Josepha Hale, the magazine editor who wrote the nursery rhyme, spent 17 years writing to presidents asking for a national Thanksgiving Day.
4Abraham Lincoln made it a national holiday.
On 3 October 1863, during the American Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November.
5“Franksgiving” caused chaos.
In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving a week earlier to give shops a longer Christmas season. Many states refused, so for two years the country had two Thanksgivings. In 1941 Congress fixed it by law as the fourth Thursday in November.
6Canada celebrates it in October.
Canadian Thanksgiving falls on the second Monday in October, closer to the end of the harvest further north.
7The Macy’s parade began in 1924.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York started in 1924. Its famous giant character balloons first appeared in 1927.
8American football is part of the tradition.
The Detroit Lions have played on Thanksgiving almost every year since 1934, and the Dallas Cowboys since 1966.
9Around 46 million turkeys are eaten.
According to the US National Turkey Federation, Americans eat about 46 million turkeys at Thanksgiving every year.
10The president pardons a turkey.
Turkeys have been presented to the president since the 1940s. George H. W. Bush made the “pardon”, sparing the bird to live out its days on a farm, an official yearly tradition in 1989.
11Butterball has a turkey hotline.
Since 1981, Butterball’s Turkey Talk-Line has answered questions from worried cooks, helping with more than 100,000 queries each holiday season.
12The heaviest turkey ever was British.
According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest turkey ever recorded was a bird called Tyson, raised in Britain, which weighed 39.09 kg (86 lb) in 1989.
13It is the peak day for kitchen fires.
The US National Fire Protection Association says Thanksgiving is the peak day of the year for home cooking fires, with about three times as many as on an average day.
14Black Friday follows Thanksgiving.
The day after Thanksgiving marks the start of the Christmas shopping season in the US. The name “Black Friday” was popularised by police in Philadelphia in the 1960s, describing the traffic and crowds.
FAQs about Thanksgiving
When is Thanksgiving?
In the United States, Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday in November. In Canada, it is the second Monday in October.
Do people in the UK celebrate Thanksgiving?
It is not a UK holiday, although some families, especially those with American connections, celebrate it, and Black Friday sales have become popular in Britain.
Sources and further reading
Explore more: facts about Thursday and facts about Christmas.
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