[A favorite website (history.com) has ten questions for this special day. We
will share five today and five tomorrow]
1. Fact or Fiction: Thanksgiving is held on the final Thursday of November
each year.
Fiction. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln designated the last Thursday in
November as a national day of thanksgiving. However, in 1939, after a
request from the National Retail Dry Goods Association, President Franklin
Roosevelt decreed that the holiday should always be celebrated on the fourth
Thursday of the month (and never the occasional fifth, as occurred in 1939)
in order to extend the holiday shopping season by a week. The decision
sparked great controversy, and was still unresolved two years later, when
the House of Representatives passed a resolution making the last Thursday in
November a legal national holiday. The Senate amended the resolution,
setting the date as the fourth Thursday, and the House eventually agreed.
2. Fact or Fiction: One of America’s Founding Fathers thought the turkey
should be the national bird of the United States.
Fact. In a letter to his daughter sent in 1784, Benjamin Franklin suggested
that the wild turkey would be a more appropriate national symbol for the
newly independent United States than the bald eagle (which had earlier been
chosen by the Continental Congress). He argued that the turkey was “a much
more respectable Bird,” “a true original Native of America,” and “though a
little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage.”
3. Fact or Fiction: In 1863, Abraham Lincoln became the first American
president to proclaim a national day of thanksgiving.
Fiction. George Washington, John Adams and James Madison all issued
proclamations urging Americans to observe days of thanksgiving, both for
general good fortune and for particularly momentous events (the adoption of
the U.S. Constitution, in Washington’s case; the end of the War of 1812, in
Madison’s).
4. Fact or Fiction: Macy’s was the first American department store to
sponsor a parade in celebration of Thanksgiving.
Fiction. The Philadelphia department store Gimbel’s had sponsored a parade
in 1920, but the Macy’s parade, launched four years later, soon became a
Thanksgiving tradition and the standard kickoff to the holiday shopping
season. The parade became ever more well-known after it featured prominently
in the hit film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which shows actual footage of
the 1946 parade. In addition to its famous giant balloons and floats, the
Macy’s parade features live music and other performances, including by the
Radio City Music Hall Rockettes and cast members of well-known Broadway
shows.
5. Fact or Fiction: Turkeys are slow-moving birds that lack the ability to
fly.
Fiction (kind of). Domesticated turkeys (the type eaten on Thanksgiving)
cannot fly, and their pace is limited to a slow walk. Female domestic
turkeys, which are typically smaller and lighter than males, can move
somewhat faster. Wild turkeys, on the other hand, are much smaller and more
agile. They can reach speeds of up to 20-25 miles per hour on the ground and
fly for short distances at speeds approaching 55 miles per hour. They also
have better eyesight and hearing than their domestic counterparts.
[Have a blessed Thanksgiving and focus on the super-abundance God has given
to even the poorest of us in His grace thru Jesus Christ our Lord]
~~
Dr Bob Griffin
[email protected] www.grif.net
“Jesus Knows Me, This I Love!”