Thanksgiving by the Numbers: 450 Million Pounds of Cranberry Sauce Created for the Day

From the number of peas canned to the number of pumpkins used, Thanksgiving can be seen in the numbers. Check out these facts and figures.

In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims, early settlers of Plymouth Colony, held a three-day feast to celebrate a bountiful harvest, an event many regard as the nation’s first Thanksgiving. The legacy of thanks and the feast have survived the centuries, as the event became a national holiday in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving. Later, President Franklin Roosevelt clarified that Thanksgiving should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of the month to encourage earlier holiday shopping, never on the occasional fifth Thursday. Numbers about the great feast: 114.7 million                       Number of households across the nation — all potential gathering places …

•  1 Comment
• Photos (1)