The tradition of the American president’s pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey has been observed every year except 1951, when President Truman refused to pardon the notorious cop-killer Gobbler Gus.

The Pilgrims had originally intended to make a Thanksgiving goose the centerpiece of their celebration, but quickly learned that American geese fight back.

The Wampanoag guests at the first Thanksgiving were not nearly as thankful for their English neighbors as they politely pretended to be.

Thanksgiving was originally a harvest festival, dating from primitive times when food was not simply removed from plastic wrapping but rather grown in the ground—a much more labor-intensive and uncertain process, and one much more likely to require divine intervention.

On the day after the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, six Wampanoag and eight Pilgrims were trampled in the Black Friday maize sales.

The American Atheists’ & Agnostics’ Association (AAAAA) this year has recommended that, at Thanksgiving prayers, its members thank Monsanto for a bountiful harvest.