Happy Thanksgiving

In the beginning, Thanksgiving was not celebrated as a feast. Instead, the settlers gave thanks and fasted to celebrate the bumper crop. The feast started when the Wampanoag Indians joined them and turned the fast into a three-day festival of dance and feast.

APRIL HARTMANN: Featured on illustrator Saturday.

The first Thanksgiving has always been credited to the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. But the first recorded Thanksgiving actually occurred three years earlier 600 miles south in Virginia. On September 16, 1619, the Good Ship Margaret which was only 35 ft. long and weighed 47 tons set sail from Bristol England with 35 settlers commissioned to 8000 acres 30 miles west of Jamestown on the James River. The land was given to the Virginia Company by King James and is the current site of Berkeley Plantation.

GAILIA BERNSTEIN: Featured on Illustrator Saturday.

The crew was comprised of settlers, many of whom were craftsmen who were offered indentured status to settle at the site and carve out a working enterprise out of the wilderness. The Margaret arrived at Berkley Hundred on December 4, 1619. The 35 hearty souls who had traversed the North Atlantic on a 35 ft ship for two and a half months, came ashore with their luggage. The instructions from the Virginia Company required Captain John Woodlief to immediately conduct a religious ceremony of Thanksgiving.

LISA GOLDBERG: Featured on Illustrator Saturday.

The first Thanksgiving Day was held in 1621 and included 50 Pilgrims and 90 Wampanoag Indians and it continued for three days. It was eaten with spoons and cut with knives but there were no forks which were not even invented and came into use 10 years later.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Featured on Illustrator Saturday

The first pardon of Turkey happened in 1947 when the then US President Truman started this ritual. Every year since, the US President pardons a turkey and saves it from being eaten for thanksgiving dinner. This year President Trump Pardoned Corn and Cob.

DEBORAH MELMON: Featured on Illustrator Saturday

Turkeys can run at a speed of 20 miles per hour. However the domesticated turkeys are specially bred and fattened and can’t run fast.

KAYLA STARK: Featured on Illustrator Saturday

More than 46 million turkeys are consumed by Americans for Thanksgiving Day. California tops among all states in consuming most turkeys in the US on Thanksgiving day.

PETRA BROWN: Featured on Illustrator Saturday

The record of the heaviest turkey is 86 pounds according to the Guinness Book of records.

LENA RALSTON: FEATURED ON ILLUSTRATOR SATURDAY

Hanukkah and Thanksgiving came together in 1888 and will happen again only after 70000 years.

PATRICIA ARCHILLES: FEATURED ON ILLUSTRATOR SATURDAY.

According to the National Turkey Federation, 88% of Americans consume turkeys on Thanksgiving which means 12% of people do not eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

BECCA STEDTLANDER: FEATURED ON ILLUSTRATOR SATURDAY

Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863. It was due to the efforts of Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb” who in a long campaign stretching to 17 years convinced President Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday.

MELISSA SWEET: https://www.melissasweet.net/

In 1924, 400 employees marched from Convent Ave to 145th street in New York City in what was to become the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. There were no large balloons and the march featured only live animals from Central Park Zoo. 

In 1927, the gigantic balloons that are now the signature element of the parade made their first appearance with the help of helium. The balloons replaced the zoo animals that were frightening to some children, and the first balloons included cartoon characters like Felix the Cat.

The Macy’s Day Parade has been televised nationally on NBC since 1953.

OLGA SKOMOROKHOVA: FEATURED ON ILLUSTRATOR SATURDAY.

The customary and all-important football games started way back in 1934. It was the first NFL game that was broadcast nationally and was played between Detroit Lions & Chicago Bears.

TIMOTHY BANKS: Featured on Illustrator Saturday.

The Americans are not the only ones to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. Canada has been having the official Thanksgiving Day since 1879. The date was not fixed until 1957 when it was ruled that the second Monday of October would be celebrated as Thanksgiving Day.

KIMBERLEY BARNES: FEATURED ON ILLUSTRATOR SATURDAY

NOEL ILL: Featured on Illustrator Saturday

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MAY YOUR THANKSGIVING BE FILLED WITH LOVE, GOOD CHEER, AND A FULL TUMMY!

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy