Thanksgiving Fast Facts

By: Hollis Conners

Thanksgiving can occur as early as November 22nd and as late as November 28th.

The Snoopy balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has appeared the most out of all the balloons.

Statistics About Thanksgiving!

1.) 46 million turkeys are consumed on Thanksgiving
2.) 22 million turkeys on Christmas
3.) 19 million on Easter

Did you know…?
Gobbler is the name for male turkeys, while baby turkeys are known as poults.

Benjamin Franklin believed the national bird should have been the Turkey.

Domesticated turkeys cannot fly. Wild turkeys can fly short distances up to 55 miles per hour.

The fork was not present at the first Thanksgiving feast. Those in attendance only used spoons, knives and their fingers.

A common good luck ritual is to have two people pull on both sides of the “wishbone.” When it breaks in half, the one with the larger piece will become lucky.

Turkey does not make you sleepy after a Thanksgiving Day feast. It is actually the tryptophan in the turkey, which is found in higher amounts in pork, soybeans and parmesan. The over-consumption of food causes the “food coma.”

Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday in 1941.

4500 calories consumed on average by a single person on Thanksgiving.

Turkeys can drown if they look up when it’s raining.

The day before Thanksgiving is often believed to be the busiest travel day, when in fact, it is Thanksgiving Day.

Yale vs. Princeton was the first Thanksgiving football game in 1876.

50 percent of Americans put the stuffing in the turkey.

President Thomas Jefferson believed Thanksgiving was the “most ridiculous idea” he had ever heard.