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10 Things to Know About Thanksgiving

By Barry Abisch
Provided by WorldNow

The first Thanksgiving. The earliest Thanksgiving celebration by European settlers in what is now North America was not held by the Pilgrims in 1621. The first documented Thanksgiving observance was held on May 27, 1578 in New Foundland. There also may have been a Thanksgiving service in Maine in 1607. Historians also speculate that Spanish explorers observed days of Thanksgiving in Florida even before 1578. (Learn more: Smithsonian Institution).

Pilgrim Prayers. It its probable that the Pilgrims did not consider the celebration they held with the local Indians to be a Thanksgiving observance. For the deeply religious settlers, Thanksgiving was a prayerful occasion reserved for church. They would have considered feasting, music and dance inappropriate as part of a Thanksgiving service. (Learn more:History.com).

Dinner Guests. It was not only Christian Europeans who had a tradition of giving thanks. The Wampanoag Indians, who were the Pilgrims’ guests for the 3-day celebration in 1621, had long celebrated a festival of Thanksgiving they called Nickommoh. The celebration included give-away ceremonies, feasting, dancing and sports and games. (Learn more: Plimoth Plantation).

An American Holiday. The Continental Congress declared a day of Thanksgiving during the Revolutionary War. Presidents George Washington, John Adams and James Madison also called for days of Thanksgiving in the young American nation. But Thomas Jefferson, who served between Adams and Madison, declined to do so, citing the separation of church and state. There were no further presidential declarations until Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation in 1863. Thanksgiving Day has been a national holiday ever since. (Learn more: Library of Congress).

The Write Stuff. The campaign to establish a national Thanksgiving Day holiday was led by Sarah Josepha Hale, who edited several well-known women’s magazines. In addition to writing editorials on the subject, she also dispatched letters to five U. S. presidents, urging them to issue a Thanksgiving Day proclamation. It was after receiving a letter from Hale that President Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday. Hale, by the way, also wrote the children’s poem, Mary Had a Little Lamb. (Learn more: Library of Congress).

It’s A Date. No one knows the exact date of the Pilgrims feast in 1621, only that it was sometime in the Fall. It was President Lincoln who fixed the celebration in November, setting the national holiday on the last Thursday in November. In 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved the date to the third Thursday in November, to extend the holiday shopping season for merchants trying to recover from the Great Depression. Two years later, Congress issued a joint resolution setting the date as the fourth Thursday in Thanksgiving Day, and that is when we have celebrated ever since (Learn more: Smithsonian Institution).

Turkey Day. Nearly 88 percent of Americans say they eat turkey during Thanksgiving, when an estimated 46 million turkeys are consumed. Christmas is the second biggest turkey holiday, when 22 million turkeys are eaten. (Learn more: National Turkey Federation).

Pardon me. In 1947, President Harry S Truman “pardoned” a turkey on Thanksgiving Eve. Ever since, it has become a White House tradition for the President to issue similar pardons in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. The first pardoned bird was taken to a petting zoo in Virginia. More recently, the pardoned turkeys have been flown to Floriday or California to take a place of honor in the Thanksgiving parades at WaltDisney World or at DisneyLand. (Learn more: Library of Congress).

March Time. Thanksgiving Day parades have become an established part of the holiday celebration. Although the Macy’s parade in New York City is the biggest, it was not the first. Credit for staging the first Thanksgiving Day parade, in 1920, goes to Gimbel’s department store in Philadelphia. (Learn more: suit101.com).

Kick Off. Along with turkey dinners and parades, football has become an established part of the American Thanksgiving celebration. In 1878, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association scheduled its championship game on Thanksgiving Day. Probably the first "big game" played on the holiday was between Ivy League rivals Princeton and Yale at the Polo Grounds in New York City, in 1893. The Detroit Lions of the National Football League have scheduled a Thanksgiving Day game every year since 1934, except during World War II. (Learn more: USAFooball.com).