After a hard and devastating first year in the New World the Pilgrim's fall harvest was very successful and plentiful. There was corn, fruits, vegetables, along with fish which was packed in salt, and meat that was smoke cured over fires. They found they had enough food to put away for the winter.  The pilgrims shared a feast in the fall time, probably October, with the Wampanoag Indians. 

The Pilgrims had survived. They built homes and raised enough crops to keep them alive during the long winter, and they were at peace with their Indian neighbors. Their Governor, William Bradford, proclaimed a day of thanksgiving that was to be shared by all the colonists and the neighboring Native American Indians.  Although this was technically the first Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving would not become an annual event until many years later.

The custom of celebrating Thanksgiving, held after the harvest, continued through the years. During the American Revolution a day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress.

·         Americans feast on 535 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving.

·         45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the United States at Thanksgiving according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

·         Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be our national bird.

·         Domesticated turkeys cannot fly, however wild turkeys can fly up to 55 miles per hour over short distances.

·         Only male (tom) turkeys gobble. Females make a clicking noise. The famous gobble is actually a seasonal mating call.

·         The heaviest turkey ever raised weighed in at 86 pounds.

·         A turkey under 16 weeks of age is called a fryer. A five to seven month old turkey is called a roaster.

·         The Turkey Trot, a ballroom dance in the 1900s, was named for the short, jerky steps of the turkey. It became popular mainly because it was denounced by the Vatican as "suggestive."

·         Turkeys are known to spend the night in trees!

·         Turkeys can drown if they look up when it's raining!

·         A turkey's field of vision is 270 degrees

·         The average age of the Mayflower passenger was 32. The oldest Mayflower passenger was 64.

·         There was no milk, cheese, bread, butter or pumpkin pie at the original Thanksgiving Day feast.

·         Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims did not have big buckles on their clothing, shoes, or hats. Buckles did not come into fashion until the late 1600s.

·         The cranberry got its name because the pale pink blossoms on the plant resembled a crane’s head and neck. The name ‘craneberry’ stuck, eventually becoming cranberry.

·         Cranberries of the highest quality will always bounce

·         President Abraham Lincoln established the original date for our National Thanksgiving Day celebration in 1863.

·         President Thomas Jefferson scoffed at the idea of establishing a national “Thanksgiving Day.”

·         Congress did not declare Thanksgiving a national holiday until 1941.

·         The average person consumes 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day

·         Turkeys have heart attacks. When the Air Force was conducting test runs and breaking the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead.

·         A spooked turkey can run at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. They can also burst into flight approaching speeds between 50-55 mph in a matter of seconds.

·         Fossil evidence shows that turkeys roamed the Americas 10 million years ago.

·         More than 40 million green bean casseroles are served on Thanksgiving.

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