Thanksgiving Facts & Trivia

1. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States.
2. By the fall of 1621 only half of the pilgrims, who had sailed on the Mayflower, survived. The survivors, thankful to be alive, decided to give a thanksgiving feast.
3. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada.
4. The Plymouth Pilgrims were the first to celebrate the Thanksgiving.
5. The pilgrims arrived in North America in December 1620.
6. The Pilgrims sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to reach North America.
7. The pilgrims sailed on the ship, which was known by the name of 'Mayflower'.
8. They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day in the fall of 1621.
9. The pilgrims did not serve pumpkin pie, Rather, they made stewed pumpkin at the first Thanksgiving feast.
10. They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
11. The drink that the Puritans brought with them in the Mayflower was the beer.
12. The Wampanoag Indians were the people who taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate the land.
13. The Pilgrim leader, Governor William Bradford, had organized the first Thanksgiving feast in the year 1621 and invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians also to the feast.
14. The first Thanksgiving feast was held in the presence of around ninety Wampanoag Indians and the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit, was also invited there.
15. The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days.
16. President George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in the year 1789 and again in 1795.
17. The state of New York officially made Thanksgiving Day an annual custom in 1817.
18. Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor with a magazine, started a Thanksgiving campaign in 1827 and it was result of her efforts that in 1863 Thanksgiving was observed as a day for national thanksgiving and prayer.
19. Abraham Lincoln issued a 'Thanksgiving Proclamation' on third October 1863 and officially set aside the last Thursday of November as the national day for Thanksgiving. Whereas earlier the presidents used to make an annual proclamation to specify the day when Thanksgiving was to be held.
20. President Franklin D. Roosevelt restored Thursday before last of November as Thanksgiving Day in the year 1939. He did so to make the Christmas shopping season longer and hus stimulate the economy of the state.
21. Congress passed an official proclamation in 1941 and declared that now onwards Thanksgiving will be observed as a legal holiday on the fourth Thursday of November every year.
22. At the original Thanksgiving, there was no milk, cheese, bread, butter, mashed potatoes, corn or pumpkin pie.
23. It has been estimated that 88% of Americans eat turkey at Thanksgiving.
24. The famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade began in the 1920’s.
25. According to Guinness World Records, the largest pumpkin pie ever baked was 12 feet in diameter and 2,020 pounds.      

                                                                                         SOURCE: www.theholidayspot.com

                                                                 


Once you´ve read this.... Would you like to try the quiz?
       

Quiz for Thanksgiving Day

                                                                                                        

DID YOU KNOW: Thanksgiving

Bonfire Night

DID YOU KNOW: Gunpowder Treason Day & Guy Fawkes Night

Hallowe'en with Mr. Bean!

Happy Hallowe'en!!

Happy Hallowe'en!! Discover the spooky tales of ghosts from the Tower

DID YOU KNOW?: Halloween

Hallowe'en, a contraction of "All Hallows´ Evening", is a celebration observed in many countries on 31st October, that is All Saints´ Eve. 

This festival is related with an ancient celtic harvest festival with pagan roots, the Gaelic festival Samhain. Some scholars understand that during the Christianization period many festivals were adapted or influenced by pagan ones in order to make it easier to understand and accept the new faith.

The festivity of All Saints was introduced in the year 609 by the Christian Church but was originally on 13th May, as Lemur, an ancient Roman festival of the dead. Then, in 835, it was switched to 1st November, as Samhain, the Gaelic festival, by Pope Gregory IV. Since the primitive Church, the main feasts have vigils which began the night before. Therefore, All Saints´ Day has its vigil too, and this one coincided with Samhain.

Including All Souls´ Day (2nd Nov.),  All Saints´ Day (1st Nov.) and its eve (31st Oct.), these three days are all known as Allhallowtide. For the Christian Church, this period in the liturgical year is dedicated to remembering the dead, saints (also called hallows), martyrs and departed believers.

Nowadays, activities for celebrating Halloween include wearing costumes, decorating, parades, playing pranks, trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, scary games, apple bobbing, telling scary stories, visiting haunted attraction...etc... The Christian religious observances include visiting graveyards and cemeteries, attending church services, lighting candles and putting flowers on the graves of the dead; in some cases even abstinence from meat, as they did in the past which is the origin of many traditional recipes and vegetarian food consumption such as potato pancakes, soul pancakes, bonfire toffee, toffee apple, cider colcannon, barmbrack, monkey nuts, pumpkin pie, roasted pumpkin seeds, roasted sweet corn or candy corn ...etc...

Sadly, we have to admit that consumerism led us to forget about the origins of all these and take part in this big business. In US, $6 billion are spent in costumes and candy in Halloween making it the second most comercial holiday after Christmas.