thanksgiving trivia questions and answers
Thanksgiving Trivia Questions and Answers
How much do you know about Thanksgiving Day? The entire nation celebrates this festival with great pomp and splendor but not many know about its origins or history. For those who would like to know why the fourth Thursday of every November is a national holiday, here are the answers.
Thanksgiving was not an official holiday until Lincoln proclaimed it in 1863. Before that, presidents would declare it a holiday or not, depending on how they felt. Strange, isn't it?
Sometime during 1620, a boat filled with more than 100 people (Pilgrims) left England and sailed across the Atlantic in search for new land. They finally found an appropriate destination (present day Massachusetts), and began a new life. The Pilgrims knew farming, and with the help of some locals (Indians) they even learned how to grow various crops. To celebrate their first bountiful harvest and to repay the gratitude of the locals, they organized a huge harvest celebration which is now known as the first Thanksgiving.
In addition to this amazing historical fact, this article enlists interesting questions and trivia about Thanksgiving.
With what did the pilgrims eat their first Thanksgiving?
Their hands, but also with a spoon and knife.
Thanksgiving is only celebrated in the United States. True or false?
False. It is also celebrated in Canada on the second Monday of October.
Which vegetable did the pilgrims have available for Thanksgiving but did not use because they thought it was poisonous?
Potatoes
The first departmental store that held a Thanksgiving parade was?
Gimbel's Department Store in 1920, Philadelphia.
Which was the first giant balloon to debut at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?
Felix the Cat
President Roosevelt declared Thanksgiving one week earlier to stabilize the economy during the Great Depression in 1939. Who opposed the change?
The Republicans
Thanksgiving Trivia
- The Plymouth pilgrims were the first to celebrate Thanksgiving.
- The wishbone of the turkey is used as a good luck charm on Thanksgiving Day.
- Puritans used to love drinking beer.
- Californians are the largest consumers of turkey in the United States.
- The official Thanksgiving Proclamation was signed on October 3, 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. According to this proclamation, the last Thursday of November was to be celebrated as Thanksgiving.
- It was Sarah Joesph Hale, a magazine editor who persuaded President Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday. She had previously persuaded Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan.
- In 1941, the Congress passed an official proclamation and made Thanksgiving a national holiday which would be observed on the 4th Thursday of November every year.
- The state of New York made Thanksgiving an annual customary holiday in 1817.
- The pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean to reach North America.
- When the pilgrims reached North America, they found out that Native Americans wore clothes made from animal skin.
- The great Benjamin Franklin wanted turkey to be the national bird of the United States.
- Thanksgiving is also considered the busiest travel day in the United States.
- Almost 280 million turkeys are consumed during Thanksgiving celebrations in the United States.
- Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation presents a live turkey and two dressed turkeys to the President on Thanksgiving. The President pardons the live turkey and it is sent to a historical farm where it lives the rest of its days.