5 Thanksgiving Fun Facts

In celebration of Thanksgiving, we’re sharing 5 Fun Facts about Thanksgiving that we bet you didn’t know. Enjoy!

1. Did you know the turkey was native to North America? In French, it’s called the “Indian Chicken”, and in India it’s called the “Peruvian Chicken”.
2. Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird of the United States. An eagle, he wrote in a letter to his daughter, had “bad moral character.” A turkey, on the other hand, is a “much more respectable bird.”
3. Did you know Thanksgiving gave birth to the TV dinner? In 1953, Swanson severely overestimated the demand for Turkey… by 260 tons. With so much fowl left over, a salesperson got inspired by airplane meals and brought together 5,000 aluminum trays and loads of turkey, peas and sweet potatoes – the first frozen TV dinners.
4. Did you know that Sarah Josepha Hale, American magazine editor and author who waged a winning campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, also wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb”?
5. President Abe Lincoln said Thanksgiving would be the fourth Thursday in November, but in 1939 President Roosevelt moved it up a week hoping it would help the shopping season during the Depression era. It never caught on and it was changed back two years later.