This Thanksgiving quiz serves up the history and traditions behind America's favorite food holiday. You'll find questions on the presidents who set the date, the parade balloons over Manhattan, the NFL's oldest holiday tradition and the turkey that gets a pardon every year. It's a fun way to pass the time while the bird roasts, with a fresh fact behind every answer.
Much of what Americans picture about the first Thanksgiving comes from later traditions. The 1621 harvest gathering at Plymouth is described in only a short letter by colonist Edward Winslow, published in London in 1622. He wrote that the Wampanoag leader Massasoit arrived with about 90 men and that the celebration lasted three days. Massasoit's men went out and brought back five deer, and the governor sent four men out hunting birds. Turkey may well have been on the table, but the account never actually says so.
Over the following two centuries, days of thanksgiving were declared now and then by colonies, states and presidents, often for very different reasons. Turning it into the fixed national holiday we know today took persistence, politics and more than a few calendar debates.
Thanksgiving trivia covers far more than the meal. Questions here touch on presidents, parades, football, food and even what happens north of the border. If you're unsure, think about the era a question is pointing to and what else was happening in the country then, since wartime, economics and new media all shaped the holiday. It's a fun round to play with family between dinner and dessert, and the stories behind it are worth sharing around the table.