Happy Thanksgiving Day. The Desert Sun's Daniela Franco took some time to dig up some fun Thanksgiving Day facts that you can use to impress family and friends:
- In 1621 the Pilgrims, early settlers of Plymouth Colony, and the Wampanoag Indians held a 3 day feast to celebrate a bountiful harvest
- In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day, after writer Sarah Josepha Hale said it could help unite the country during the Civil War
- Franklin Roosevelt later said that Thanksgiving Day should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November to encourage early holiday shopping and never on the occasional fifth Thursday in November
- In 1924 the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was held with 400 employees marching from Covent Street to 145th Street in New York City
- In 1927, the first helium balloon, Felix The Cat, debuted in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
- The average cost to build a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon is $190,000
- 50 million viewers watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
- 245 million turkeys are forecast to be raised in the United States in 2017
- The top turkey producing state is Minnesota with 44.5 million birds forecast to be raised in 2017
- The Guinness Book of Records’ heaviest turkey? Would you believe 86 pounds. Good news, the average turkey for Thanksgiving Day weighs 15 pounds.
- The major sweet potato producing states in the United States are forecast to produce 3.1 billion pounds of sweet potatoes in 2017
- And last but not least…it is forecast that 859 million pounds of cranberries will be produced in the United States in 2017, with Wisconsin leading the pack of producing states with 521 million pounds.
To watch The Desert Sun’s Daniela Franco’s fun fact filled video, please visit: http://www.desertsun.com/videos/news/2017/11/22/thanksgiving-day-how-much-do-you-know/107911170/