I bet you did not know all of these 10 Thanksgiving facts… or maybe you did

Thanksgiving Day is on Thursday, and with the November holiday quickly approaching we wanted to present you with 10 intriguing Thanksgiving facts you may not already know. Happy learning!

1. Thanksgiving was first celebrated in 1621 – This was a three day festival with 50 Pilgrims and 90 Wampanoag Indians. Boy have we come a long way since then.
2. Thomas Jefferson refused to celebrate – That’s right. One of our Founding Fathers would not declare days of thanksgiving like the rest of his counterparts. He felt it would lead to state-sponsored religious worship. Thankfully the rest of the presidents did not follow suit and declared a day of giving thanks.
3. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is almost 100 – The massive float-bearing parade was started in 1924. The only difference was it centered around having live animals from the Central Park Zoo featured in the festivities.
4. Calvin Coolidge received a… raccoon??? – Not only did he receive it, but he received it alive and was supposed to serve it up for Thanksgiving dinner. Instead he decided to pardon it like presidents today pardon turkeys and he even kept it as a pet.
5. Deer and seafood were original Thanksgiving staples – Before we ate turkey and stuffing we had deer and seafood. The Wampanoags would bring seafood such as mussels, lobster and bass to their Thanksgiving feasts. That actually sounds pretty good.
6. The Butterball hotline answers 100,000 questions a year – Ah yes, the land of 100,000 turkey related questions. The famous turkey supplier has to answer a huge number of questions regarding how to cook a turkey and so much more. 
7. People consume an average of 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving – The daily suggestion is 2,000 calories. It’s no wonder people tend to put on some extra holiday weight.
8. Americans eat 704 millions pounds of turkey (or 44 million birds) on Thanksgiving – This was back in 2017, but still. To put it in perspective, thats three million more turkeys than are served up on Christmas and Easter. Combined!
9. The Detroit Lions claim to fame is Thanksgiving – This impoverished NFL franchise has been playing on ever Thanksgiving Day since 1934 (with the exception of World War II). Too bad their losing record on Thanksgiving foreshadows their overall record as a football franchise.
10. We might not have Thanksgiving if not for “Mary Had A Little Lamb” – Well… not quite, but still. Back in 1863, the author of this poem (Sarah Josepha Hale) had called President Abe Lincoln for the umpteenth straight year. Only this time he listened and proclaimed Thanksgiving as an official national holiday.

The more you know, right? Thanksgiving Day is one of the most memorable holidays each and every year, and now that you have extra knowledge about this day, you can have even more appreciation for the November holiday.