These interesting facts about Thanksgiving will entertain all your holiday guests.
Thanksgiving is almost here! In honor of everyone’s favorite feast day, here are some Thanksgiving fun facts for you to share with all your holiday guests.
1) The largest turkey ever recorded weighed 86 pounds.
2) Only male turkeys, called Toms, gobble. Female turkeys, or hens, cackle instead.
3) Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be America’s national bird. In a letter to his daughter, he claimed that the bald eagles had “bad moral character,” while he believed that turkeys were a “much more respectable bird.”
4) Thanksgiving was almost a fast instead of a feast. The early settlers intended to celebrate their first harvest by praying and abstaining from food. However, when they invited the Wampanoag Indians to join the festivities, the fast turned into a three-day feast instead!
5) Turkey wasn’t served at the first Thanksgiving feast. Instead, deer, venison, ducks, geese, oysters, lobster, eel and fish were most likely on the menu. Pumpkins were also probably served, just not in pie form.
6) The first Thanksgiving dinner was not eaten with forks. Forks did not arrive in America until ten tears after the feast. These utensils didn’t really become popular until the 18th century.
7) President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. However, the real mastermind behind Thanksgiving was a newspaper editor by the name of Sarah Josepha Hale. Hale is also well known for writing the popular nursery rhyme “Mary had a Little Lamb.”
8) The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade took place in 1924. The parade featured 400 employees marching down the streets of New York City. While the parade didn’t have the huge balloon floats we know and love, it did feature live animals from the Central Park Zoo.
9) Thanksgiving is behind the first TV dinners. In 1953, someone at Swanson ordered too many turkeys in preparation for Thanksgiving. After the holiday came and went, the company had more frozen turkeys then they knew what to do with. As a solution, an employee decided to package cooked turkey, side dishes, and froze them together. This was the birth of the TV dinner.
10) Thanksgiving isn’t just an American holiday; many countries all over the world have their own version of Thanksgiving. For instance, Canada celebrates their Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October, Koreans celebrate their Chuseok in the 8th month of the lunar calendar, and Germany celebrates their Erntedankfest on the first Sunday of October.
Did you know any of these Thanksgiving fun facts? This Thanksgiving, impress all your dinner guests with these interesting facts. If you have clients looking to get small business or workers compensation insurance this Thanksgiving, then turn to the team at PMC Insurance Services. Our insurance experts can assist you with a wide variety of coverage options available to your clients. Contact us for more information.
