Thanksgiving Fun Facts - About Turkeys and Thanksgiving Day

Are you looking for some Thanksgiving fun facts?

Sure, we all do Thanksgiving, but there is much more to it than any of us realize.

For instance, you might not have known that during the first Thanksgiving, the Native Americans were not originally invited to the festivities, but they heard the pilgrims and came to find out what was going on.

Rather than try to make them leave, the Pilgrims asked the Native Americans to stay. However, the pilgrims were not the true hosts, because there were so many Native Americans that they had to bring their own food to the table.

This next turkey day, why not wow friends and family with some Thanksgiving fun facts:

• What do we eat now? Pumpkin pie? Mashed potatoes with gravy? Corn on the cob? That's not what they consumed at the first Thanksgiving feast, which was believed to have been up of chicken, fish, lobster, rabbit, goat cheese, eggs, beans, hickory nuts, chestnuts, dried fruits, cabbage, carrots, leeks, onions, radishes, squashes, honey and maple syrup.
  
  
• At that time, the pilgrims did not eat with forks, but used knives, spoons and their fingers.
  
  
• Canada celebrates Thanksgiving too, but it's on the second Monday of each October.
  
  
• Here's a Thanksgiving fun fact - the First Thanksgiving feast lasted for three days.
  
  
• The puritans brought beer with them on the Mayflower.
  
  
• In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln established the original date for our National Thanksgiving Day celebration.
  
  
• Here's another Thanksgiving fun fact - on Thanksgiving Day, Americans feast on about 535 million pounds of turkey. That's a lot of turkey!
  
  
• If they look to the sky while it's raining, a turkey can drown.
  
  
• You can tell a good cranberry because it will bounce, and when making cranberry sauce, it is best to use the fresh kind.
  
  
• The cranberry used to be called craneberry because the plant has pink blossoms that look like the head and neck of a crane.
  
  
• Scared turkeys can fly at a speed of 50 to 55 mph in just seconds.
  
  
• Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the turkey the national bird, but Thomas Jefferson didn't want this symbol, so it is thought that Franklin named male turkeys Tom as a way of spiting Jefferson.
  
  
• The average Thanksgiving turkey weighs 15 pounds.
  
  
• The heaviest turkey ever recorded weighed 86 pounds, which is about what a large dog weighs.
  
  
• It seems like most of these Thanksgiving fun facts are actually turkey fun facts. Here's another one - on a 15 pound turkey, you'll usually find about 30% dark meat and 70% white meat.
  
  
• Five of the most common turkey leftovers include stew, soup, casseroles, as a sandwich and a burger.
  
  
• Turkey has more protein than either beef or chicken.
  
  
• Male turkeys gobble but females don't. Hens actually cluck.
  
  
• Turkeys can have heart attacks. When the US Air Force was doing test runs to break the sound barrier, nearby turkeys fell dead from heart attacks.
  
  
• Turkeys do not see well at night.
  
  
• Finally, here is another Thanksgiving fun fact - for a long time, Thanksgiving was not considered a national holiday. It would be presented to the President each year and was accepted each year as a day for celebration.

These are just a couple of ideas to help you get started on the many fun facts of Thanksgiving, but there are many more that you might not have known about. Now that you know some turkey and Thanksgiving fun facts, you can share them with your friends and family.

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