Thanks Day

The major question of the day is... "Why do we eat turkey on Thanksgiving?" Well seeing as though I don't have much to do at work I decided to check out the web for the answer. Well I really didn't get an answer, but I got a bunch of interesting facts...

Myth: The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and the pilgrims celebrated it every year thereafter.

Fact: The first feast wasn't repeated, so it wasn't the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn't even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621

Until 1863, Thanksgiving Day had not been celebrated annually since the first feast in 1621. This changed in 1863 when Sarah Josepha Hale encouraged Abraham Lincoln to set aside the last Thursday in November "as a day for national thanksgiving and prayer."

Cool how the ultimate thing was to thank God for things! My family still celebrates thanksgiving in that way, but I know most of the world doesn't. Just like everything else the world has commercialized holidays. Here are some facts about turkeys themselves which I found interesting...


Turkeys have heart attacks. When the Air Force was conducting test runs and breaking the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead. Turkeys can drown if they look up when it is raining.

None of these facts answer my question excep:

The only two items that historians know for sure were on the menu are venison and wild fowl, which are mentioned in primary sources.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!!