What You Didn't Know About Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day Myths
Forget what you were taught in elementary school. Thanksgiving hosts more myths than turkeys and pumpkin pie combined. While you and your family are humbled over the dinner table, consider these rarely known Thanksgiving Day facts:
Untraditional
Thanksgiving was a one time deal for the pilgrims. They didn't celebrate it year after year. It didn't become a holiday until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln when he declared it a national holiday. However,
Lincoln
set the holiday to be celebrated on the 5th Thursday of November. Today, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the 4th Thursday. Franklin D. Roosevelt set this change in 1939 due to the holiday coming to close to Christmas.
Sorry, no Popcorn!
A popular myth is how the Indians introduced popcorn to the Pilgrims. This is far from true. Although they did contribute corn to the Thanksgiving dinner, the type of corn they provided did not pop well. Rather it was torched a little or grinded up to mix with cake like batters.
More Than Just
Although was the dominate meat at the dinner table, deer meat was plentiful. On record, the pilgrims killed five deer to divide amongst themselves. They also had waterfowl and fish. The dinner actually had little vegetables and lots of meat and nuts. Fruits, such as strawberries and grapes were also plentiful because they were growing in the wild.
Canadian Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving in is celebrated on the second Monday of October which is the same day the celebrates as Columbus Day. The Canadian Thanksgiving's history is similar to that of
North America
's. An English explorer named Martin Frobisher had been trying to find a passageway to the Orient but his attempts failed. However, in 1578 he held a celebration in honor of surviving the strenuous journey. It is now considered the first Thanksgiving in and
North America
.
Thanksgiving Parades
The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade has only been around for 80 years. In 1924, Macy's employees decided to treat
Manhattan
to a downtown parade. Due to the success, the event was established as a yearly tradition. Another famous Thanksgiving Day parade is held in
Detroit, Michigan
which was established by Charles F. Wendel in 1924. Parades are American
No matter what myths surround the holidays, the common denominator is always generosity. This is the virtue we should all posses as we give thanks this holiday season.
Published by TAW
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5 Comments
Post a CommentHmmmm. Things must have changed since I was in elementary school. I never heard anything about popcorn--regular corn, yes--but not popcorn. A few years back I researched and wrote articles about holidays for a website. Recently took that information and turned it into a quiz (Holiday Quiz: Ten Quiz Questions About United States Holidays). I learn many interesting facts about U.S. holidays.
Thanks all. It seems AC screwed up the layout of my article somehow. I even have missing words. Thanks for the comments!
Nice article. The only part I had a hard time with was the format it was in. It cut you off in bad places. All in all it was a nice read.
Excellent article, well written, informative, look foward on reading more of your work, we need more articles on information that teaches and informs us about true history, as my high school teacher used to say.
Excellent well written informative article, look foward to readind more articles like this, on many topics.