Why the president pardons turkeys and other Thanksgiving facts (gallery)

Legal History

Why the president pardons turkeys and other Thanksgiving facts (gallery)

November 21, 2016, 4:10 pm CST

Turkey

Primary school plays may have convinced you that you know the story of Thanksgiving. But the establishment of Thanksgiving as a national holiday is much more recent than the Plymouth colony’s feast with the Wampanoag in 1621.

Just how did we settle on the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day? Which White House child managed to stave off execution for the turkey he’d named Jack? Why do we have the author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” to thank for Thanksgiving?

And why exactly does the president of the United States issue a presidential pardon to a turkey every year?

For these answers and more, check out our gallery.

Why we pardon Thanksgiving turkeys

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Origins of our modern Thanksgiving

Often we think our national traditions are older than they really are. For example, Thanksgiving. While it is true that the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag had a harvest feast at the Plymouth colony in 1621, Thanksgiving was not an annual occurence until much, much later. (And rivals for the “first” Thanksgiving held in America include celebrations by a 1541 Spanish expedition led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in the Texas panhandle; by French Huguenots near modern-day Jacksonville, Florida, in 1564; and by the Jamestown colony in 1610, according to the Library of Congress.)

Attribution: Gallery written by Lee Rawles.