5 THINGS YOU DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THANKSGIVING (AND TURKEYS)

This year Thanksgiving is on November 26th. It has been a national holiday in the United States since 1863, when Abraham Lincoln was President, but did you know that:

1. The first Thanksgiving celebration was held in 1621. It involved 50 Pilgrims and 90 Wampanoag Indians and lasted three days. They probably ate deer and venison, but certainly not turkey.

2. An average of 46 million turkeys are eaten at Thanksgiving: that’s twice as many as at Christmas.

3. Thanksgiving isn’t an exclusively American event. It’s also celebrated in Canada, on the second Monday in October.

4. Founding father Benjamin Franklin would have preferred the turkey to be the national symbol, and not the bald eagle, which he considered to be “a bird of bad moral character” that “does not get his living honestly.”  

5.  The noise made by a male turkey (a tom) is called a gobble, while that made by a female turkey (a hen) is called a cackle.

(This month also sees the official start of Christmas shopping in the United States: the day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday > click here to read the Speak Up article Black Friday (published in the November issue).