10 Fascinating Facts about Thanksgiving

Impress Your Friends and Family with These Details about One of America’s Oldest Traditions

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Observed on the fourth Thursday of November, Thanksgiving is one of the most popular holidays in the United States and one of its oldest traditions.

Here are ten (10) Thanksgiving facts that you can wield you impress your family and friends as you celebrate Thanksgiving with them.

1. The now famous three-day harvest festival in 1621 in Plymouth Colony featuring Pilgrims from England and the indigenous Americans they encountered has long been considered the first celebration of thanksgiving in North America (though this has been repeatedly debunked and challenged).
2. In fact, the earliest recorded thanksgiving observance in North America — at least involving Europeans — dates to 1578 in Newfoundland.
3. The turkey became associated with early thanksgiving (not yet with a capital “T”) celebrations in part because it was common and native to North America.
4. George Washington was the first president of the United States to officially proclaim a call for a national Thanksgiving in 1789.
5. Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, is believed to have said: “No citizen of the…