Pilgrims how to cultivate the land. *The drink that the Puritans brought with them in the Mayflower was beer. *By the fall of 1621 only half of the pilgrims, who had sailed on the Mayflower, survived. The survivors, thankful to be alive, decided to give a thanksgiving feast. *They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day at Plymouth, Massachusetts. *The Pilgrim leader, Governor William Bradford organized the Thanksgiving feast and invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians also to the feast. *The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days. * At the first harvest celebration with the pilgrims and Native Americans, "fowl" was eaten. While this might have been turkey, it's more likely to have been geese and ducks. * A mature turkey has 3,500 feathers. Turkey feather were used by Native Americans to stabilize arrows. * Turkeys have lived in North America for 10 million years *There was no milk, cheese, bread, butter or pumpkin pie at the original Thanksgiving Day feast. *The cranberry got its name because the pale pink blossoms on the plant resembled a crane's head and neck. The name craneberry stuck, eventually becoming cranberry. *Ben Franklin liked the Turkey so much he wanted it to be the official bird of the US. *A male turkey is called a (tom). The female is called a (hen). The babies are called poults. *Only male (tom) turkeys gobble. Females (hen) make a clicking noise. The famous gobble is actually a seasonal mating call. * A tom's gobble can be heard a mile away. *A hen lays around 115 eggs a month which take about 28 days to hatch. *Turkeys are known to spend the night in trees! *Domesticated turkeys cannot fly. Wild turkeys however, can run 20 miles per hour and fly up to 55 miles per hour. *Turkeys can drown if they look up when it's raining! *A group of turkeys is called a flock. *Currently over 670 million turkeys are eaten at Thanksgiving. *A turkey under 16 weeks of age is called a fryer. A five to seven month old turkey is called a roaster. *The largest turkey on record was 86 pounds. *The average person consumes 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day.
Written by Shana Croft. Courtesy of Articlesbase.com.