7 Things You Didn't Know About Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is upon us and while we all know and love the traditions, what about the history left out of the mix? Did you know that FDR tried to move Thanksgiving and that this beloved holiday gave birth to the TV dinner? Check out these fun facts and more below!

FDR Took On Turkey Day

Thanksgiving was traditionally celebrated on the last Thursday of November because of a standard set by Abraham Lincoln. In 1939, Roosevelt asked Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving a week early to increase the time for Christmas shopping during the Great Depression.



Americans were so upset that thousands of letters poured into the White House. Practical issues also abounded: Schools, calendar makers and professional football players had all planned on a different schedule.



The controversy prompted Congress to pass a law two years later that declared Thanksgiving would always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.

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Comments

[WTSharpe]

11:24 AM on 11/26/2009

The first English Thanksgiving in this country was celebrated on the fourth of December at what would later become Berkeley Plantation near Jamestown, Virginia in the year 1619. The Jamestown settlers weren't the first to hold a Thanksgiving celebration in my country, however, only the first to hold one in English. Before the Virginian celebration, French Huguenot colonists, on June 30, 1564, celebrated Thanksgiving at a settlement near Jacksonville, Florida. And before that, there was a Spanish Thanksgiving in Texas celebrated by explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and 1,500 of his men in May of 1541. The residents of St. Augustine, Florida also like to remind people of the Thanksgiving held in their city on September 8, 1565.

The Pilgrims were Johnny-come-VERY-latelies to the whole Thanksgiving thing. They were not the first, and they weren't even the first to celebrate in English!

[wfglaser]

05:13 AM on 11/26/2009

That Abe Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving Day during the "Yankee War of Aggression" must drive the Tea Baggers and Neo Confederates crazy. Ha! Happy turkey day one and all, and to all a good night.

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/source/sb2/sb2w.htm

[max08]

05:09 AM on 11/26/2009

Here's your homework:
http://www.history.com/content/thanksgiving/thanksgiving-proclamation

[Tahut]

05:49 AM on 11/26/2009

Pardon me, but you just made an F on today's history lesson.

The Stuff of Democratic Life - Linclon, Gettysburg and Thanksgiving

[Tahut]

05:54 AM on 11/26/2009

The Stuff of Democratic Life - Lincoln, Gettysburg and Thanksgiving
url: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009285

Read the article and learn why today was so important for Lincoln to set aside a day to give thanks for what we have. It has nothing to do with pilgrims, indians or turkeys - that's childish to believe once you've grown up. It has everything to do with what it means to be an American.

[wfglaser]

05:06 AM on 11/26/2009

"With other meals and snacking included a day can come to between 4,000 and 6,000 calories."

Gee, I know it's a blog, but at least use complete sentences.

"With other meals and snacking included, daily intake can come to between 4,000 and 6,000 calories."

[propitiousmoment]

10:13 AM on 11/26/2009

Actually, it is a complete sentence: "day" = subject, "can" = verb. That's all it needs, although it's worded more in the vernacular way we speak than in the formal way of writing.

[max08]

05:04 AM on 11/26/2009

Please. Do your homework. The first President of the United States, John Hanson, declared Thanksgiving by Proclamation in Philadelphia, not Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln did his stuff 90 years later.

[Tahut]

05:57 AM on 11/26/2009

He didn't make it a law or a holiday so it doesn't matter - it didn't serve a useful purpose.

[digginestdogg]

01:10 AM on 11/26/2009

So um where are the 7 things? Not frickin' obvious in the article! LOL Huff Post, you are in danger of becoming your nemesis: sensationalist faux journalism with no substance. Wake up before it is too late.

[Shannon Tanski]

12:58 AM on 11/26/2009

I thought it was the third thursday in november...if it was the fourth wouldn't it sometimes not occur depending on how the dates fell?

[mikebinos]

01:17 AM on 11/26/2009

Tomorrow is the fourth Thursday of the month, not the third. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Therefore, Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of the month.

If Friday is the 1st, Thanksgiving is the 28th. That's the latest Thanksgiving can be. Earliest it can be is the 22nd. Always the fourth Thursday though

[Tahut]

05:37 AM on 11/26/2009

I also thought it was the third Thursday too.

[naschkatze]

12:06 AM on 11/26/2009

I recently bought a book on the first Thanksgiving which I haven't got around to reading yet, but here is some interesting information for you turkeyholics I found on the dust jacket blurb. There was no turkey, no cranberries, no sweet potatoes. "The first meal with the Indians was likely composed of venison, raccoon, and beaver meat, with beans and squash and perhaps a few Jerusalem artichokes." Anyone for an authentic Thanksgiving meal?

[anticapitalist1983]

12:03 AM on 11/26/2009

Here's something you didn't know:
"How Did Colonialism Dispossess?"
Comments from an Edge of Empire
http://zinelibrary.info/files/ColonialismCapitalism.pdf

[ZenCrusader]

11:50 PM on 11/25/2009

They forgot the fish fork - heathens !

[wfglaser]

05:22 AM on 11/26/2009

I bet they kept their elbows on the table and wiped their mouths on their sleeves, too.

[R2D2-51]

10:54 PM on 11/25/2009

These self-proclaimed patriots will demand nothing short of the restoration of what was once a Constitutional Republic with a bill of rights that has teeth in it, something which has all but disappeared through an evolution of erosion under the names of Rendition, the Patriot Act and a complicit U.S. Supreme Court that has all but put the final nail in the coffin of this once proud Republic.
The war on terror was to manipulate public opinion to implement a stronger more perverse structural framework for the police state apparatus to dictate more control of its citizens (the real Nazi’s) that actually began with the cultural change that took place during the 1960’s with the Hippie movement and the so called war on drugs.

Those who implemented this (The American Ruling Class) were quite aware that given the wealth that would be hijacked by old and new American money in the names of NAFTA and GAT would ultimately lead to the financial crisis of 2008 and the eventual backlash of an armed citizenry of have-nots who will take it back by force.

Something that was quite predictable and repeated throughout mans history many times in prior empires, which also became eroded through greed, corruption and the withering away of its social fabric and value system of integrity and humble humanity.

[MsLiz]

12:15 AM on 11/26/2009

Here's the turkey.

[gurukalehuru]

02:49 AM on 11/26/2009

Down the hall and to the right. You're welcome.

[zitlight73]

10:22 PM on 11/25/2009

"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for/as for me I rejoice that I am not a Republican." Mencken

[BannedInBoston]

10:46 PM on 11/25/2009

Heh. Me too, HL....

[NoFooling]

09:29 PM on 11/25/2009

So, contrary to Ben's wishes, we chose a national bird that actually represented us after all!

[BannedInBoston]

09:10 PM on 11/25/2009

Gold old FDR! Always signing legislation with a drumstick!

[surlyatbest]

10:21 PM on 11/25/2009

And he combed his hair with a porkchop.

[Smirk]

09:00 PM on 11/25/2009

What did Ben Franklin know about Bald Eagles? Why did he think they were birds of low moral character?

[BannedInBoston]

09:04 PM on 11/25/2009

They formed Hair Club for Eagles?

[emerson7]

11:13 AM on 11/26/2009

for what it's worth, 'bald' is old english for 'white' not 'hairless'. same goes for mount baldy, and bald mountain.

[JBS]

09:30 PM on 11/25/2009

There ain't a lot of meat on a Bald Eagle drumstick.