White House Photographic Office/The National Archives Catalog
- Thanksgiving is this Thursday, November 23.
- We all know the basics about the holiday, including the story of how it got started.
- But there are some things you might not know about Thanksgiving, like the fact that FDR once tried to change the date.
We all know that the first Thanksgiving dinner took place when the Pilgrims celebrated a good harvest in the New World and that the tryptophan in turkey isn't actually what makes you so sleepy.
But did you know that Thomas Jefferson tried to cancel the holiday and that there was a "Franksgiving" crisis in the late 1930s?
We rounded up some of the best facts about Thanksgiving, which might come in handy during those awkward silences at the family dinner table.
Asta Thrastardottir contributed reporting to an earlier version of this article.