Thanksgiving Trivia

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* 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 had 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.