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California Thanksgiving Trivia
Thanksgiving in the U.S. is held on the 4th Thursday in November.Turkey History & Trivia Thanksgiving is "Stuffed with Meaning", according to one of SeeCalifornia.com columnists, C. MacDonald. And part of that stuff and stuffing involves turkeys, an American tradition dating back hundreds of years. However, many of us still know little about these wonderful birds. Here are facts and figures about Turkeys in California :
- When the Pilgrims and other settlers arrived in America, they were already familiar with raising and eating turkey and naturally included it as part of their Thanksgiving feast. Turkeys were being raised domestically in Italy, France and England by the 1500s.
- The first Thanksgiving dinner was served by the Pilgrims in 1621 OR maybe Jamestown, Virginia hosted the first Thanksgiving celebration imported as America's version of ancient Harvest Home Festival in England. Nobody really knows for sure.
- President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day forward one week, as it is presently celebrated.
- Last year (2011) more than 219 million turkeys were consumed in the United States. We estimate that 46 million of those turkeys were eaten at Thanksgiving, 22 million at Christmas and 19 million at Easter.
- 88% of Americans surveyed by the National Turkey Federation eat turkey at Thanksgiving. 16 pounds is the average turkey weight, thus approx. 736 million pounds of turkey were consumed in the United States during Thanksgiving in 2011.
- Benjamin Franklin, who proposed the turkey as the official United States' bird, was dismayed when the bald eagle was chosen over the turkey.
- Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented the President of the United States with a live turkey and two dressed turkeys in celebration of Thanksgiving. The annual presentation of the National Thanksgiving Turkey to the President has become a traditional holiday ritual in the nation's capital, signaling the unofficial beginning of the holiday season and providing the President an opportunity to reflect publicly on the meaning of the Thanksgiving season. After the ceremony, the live bird retires to Mount Vernon to live out the rest of its years.
- In 2010, for the first time in 15 years, a California turkey was selected to received the presidential pardon.