Turkey Facts
Will you be having turkey for Thanksgiving? You aren't alone -
97 percent of Americans have Turkey for Thanksgiving.
Here are some fun facts to share with your family during the celebration!
* A male turkey is a tom. A female is a hen. Babies are called poults.
* Ben Franklin liked the Turkey so much he thought it should be the
official bird of the US.
* A hen lays around 115 eggs a month which take about 28 days to hatch.
* A mature turkey has 3,500 feathers. Turkey feathers were used by Indians
to stabilize arrows.
* The largest turkey on record was 86 pounds.
* Wild turkeys can run 20 miles per hour and fly 55 miles per hour.
* Only the tom turkey gobbles. The hen makes clucking noises. A tom's
gobble can be heard a mile away.
* A group of turkeys is called a flock.
* Turkeys have lived in North America for 10 million years. Forty-Five
million are eaten at Thanksgiving.
* At the first harvest celebration with the pilgrims and Native Americans,
"fowl" was eaten. While this might have been turkey, it's more likely to
have been geese and ducks.
* At current Thanksgiving feasts, over 675 million pounds of turkey
are consumed.
* It is NOT the turkey that makes you sleepy after a Thanksgiving feast.
Tryptophan can only make you sleepy if taken on an empty stomach
without protein - hardly the case on Thanksgiving! It's the carbohydrates
in the other foods we eat with our meal that make us sleepy - neither of
which are traditional from the original pilgrim's diet.
Thanksgiving history:
* Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November
in the United States.
* 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.
* Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada.
* The Plymouth Pilgrims were the first to celebrate the Thanksgiving.
* The pilgrims arrived in North America in December 1620.
* The Pilgrims sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to reach North America.
* The pilgrims sailed on the ship, which was known by the name of 'Mayflower'.
* They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day in the fall of 1621.
* They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
* The drink that the Puritans brought with them in the Mayflower
was the beer.
* The Wampanoag Indians were the people who taught the Pilgrims how
to cultivate the land.
* 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.
* The first Thanksgiving feast was held in the presence of around ninety
Wampanoag Indians and the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit, was also
invited there.
* The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days.
* President George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving
Day Proclamation in the year 1789 and again in 1795.
* The state of New York officially made Thanksgiving Day an
annual custom in 1817.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
POSTED BY SPEARMINT BABY AT 11/26/2009
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