To read the tribute to SFC Marcus Muralles, please click here
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Turkey Day Trivia
Thanksgiving trivia curtesy of Strange Cosmos:
* The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days.
* The Wampanoag chief invited to the first Thanksgiving feast was
named Massasoit.
* The Pilgrims didn't use forks.
* Only about one-third of the original colonists were Puritans.
* The Mayflower's crossing took 66 days.
* It's unclear if the Pilgrims at turkey at the first Thanksgiving.
At the time, "turkey" meant any kind of fowl.
* Evidence indicates that turkeys have been around for more than 10
million years.
* Turkey eggs hatch in 28 days.
* A baby turkey is called a "poult."
* A mature turkey has about 3,500 feathers.
* More than 45 million turkeys are consumed during Thanksgiving.
* The average weight of a Thanksgiving turkey is 15 pounds.
* The Mayflower weighed 180 tons.
* There were at least two dogs on the Mayflower.
* The typical 15-pound turkey is 70 percent white meat and 30
percent dark meat.
* Pilgrim children, boys and girls, wore linen or wool dresses up
until the ages of seven or eight.
* Cranberries are also called "bounceberries."
* A male turkey is called a "Tom." A female turkey is called a "hen."
* The Mayflower was a merchant vessel. Before transporting the
Pilgrims, the ship was in the wine trade, and before that, in the
fish trade.
* The pet food industry uses about 13 percent of U.S. turkey
production.
* The Pilgrims did not eat cranberry sauce at the first Thanksgiving.
* In the typical Pilgrim household, adults sat down to dinner while
the children waited on them.
* A nest of turkey eggs is called a "clutch."
* The "caruncle" is the reddish, fleshy growth on the head and upper
neck of a turkey. The red, fleshy growth from the base of a turkey's
beak that hangs down over the neck is called the "snood."
* The first native Americans to introduce themselves to the Pilgrims
were Samoset and Squanto.
* Ninety-five percent of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving.