It’s time to gather with family and friends and celebrate with your own traditions. Here are a few fun facts about Thanksgiving that may be new or interesting to you!
- The first Thanksgiving took place in Plymouth Colony, in present-day Massachusetts, in 1621.
- More than 200 years later, President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving. (Congress finally made Thanksgiving Day an official national holiday in 1941).
- U.S. farmers will produce 735 million pounds of cranberries, which are native to the Americas. The top producers are Wisconsin and Massachusetts.
- 91% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
- NBC Radio broadcasted the first national Thanksgiving Day game in 1934, when the Detroit Lions hosted the Chicago Bears.
- The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, first televised nationally in 1947, now draws some 44 million viewers—not counting the 3 million people who actually line the 2.5-mile Manhattan route.
