Reading material for your Thanksgiving pleasure:

The first Thanksgiving took place in December 1621. The Pilgrims held a 3-day feast in Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.In 1863 President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November a national day of thanksgiving. Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, convinced him to do so. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada.

Turkey, cranberries, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie is the most popular Thanksgiving menu - this year, such a dinner, with coffee, milk and vegetables thrown in costs about $45 for a group of ten people.

Americans raise over 256 million turkeys with most produced in Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia, Missouri and California. About 144,000 were organic turkeys in 2005.

American farmers grow 649 million pounds of cranberries, a billion and a half pounds of sweet potatoes, and 998 million pounds of pumpkin. We also import a bunch more.

American towns named after Thanksgiving dinner’s main course include Turkey, Texas; Turkey Creek, Louisiana; and Turkey, North Carolina. Eight places are named Cranberry, and 20 are named Plymouth.

The first National Football League Thanksgiving Classic game was played in 1934, when the Lions hosted the game to get more people to go to Lions football games. Puritans brought beer to America in the Mayflower.

Some of this info came from Holidays.net