Fun Facts

fun-facts-thanksgiving
fun-facts-thanksgiving

🦃 Food & Drink

  • The first Thanksgiving feast didn’t feature turkey! Instead, the Pilgrims and Wampanoag likely enjoyed venison, duck, geese, lobster, and fish.

  • The TV dinner was invented by accident. In 1953, a company with too many frozen turkeys turned the surplus into pre-packaged Thanksgiving meals.

  • Americans eat about 46 million turkeys every Thanksgiving.

  • ā€œJingle Bellsā€ was originally written in 1857 as a Thanksgiving song for children—long before it became a Christmas classic.

  • The average person consumes around 4,500 calories during their Thanksgiving meal.


šŸ“œ History & Tradition

  • The first Thanksgiving in 1621 was a three-day celebration shared by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people.

  • Thanksgiving didn’t become an official U.S. holiday until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it after being persuaded by Sarah Josepha Hale, author of ā€œMary Had a Little Lamb.ā€

  • Benjamin Franklin once suggested the turkey as the national bird, believing it more respectable than the bald eagle.

  • The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade took place in 1924, featuring live animals from the Central Park Zoo instead of the famous balloons we know today.

  • The presidential turkey pardon tradition officially began in 1989 with George H. W. Bush.


šŸ•°ļø Modern Thanksgiving Fun

  • There are four U.S. towns named ā€œTurkeyā€ — in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and North Carolina.

  • The day after Thanksgiving is often the busiest day of the year for plumbers (leftovers and overworked sinks, anyone?).

  • The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line has been helping cooks with turkey troubles for nearly 40 years!


🧔 From your friends at Blazer 91.1 WVUB Ā here’s wishing you a safe, happy, and music-filled Thanksgiving!

Listen for more “Fun Facts” throughout each broadcast day from the Blazer Morning Brew with Dane Foley to the Afternoon Drive with Andy Morrison.