20 Exciting Facts About Thanksgiving Few Americans Know

The first Thanksgiving in North America was held in 1578 in what is now Canada which happened 43 years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock.

A struggling actor, Jim Carrey wrote himself a $10,000,000 check for 'acting services rendered' and dated it for Thanksgiving 1995. By 1994, Carrey had made millions from Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber.

Native Americans have been holding a National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving since 1970.

Franklin D. Roosevelt changed the date of Thanksgiving to make the Christmas shopping season longer.

Abraham Lincoln created the Thanksgiving Holiday in 1863 during the Civil War to keep the country together.

Up until 1933 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons were released into the air at the conclusion of the parade and would stay airborne above the city for as long as a week. A return address was stitched in and people who returned them received $100 reward.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade originally featured live animals from the Central Park Zoo, but they occasionally roared and scared children, so they were replaced with balloons.

In 1939, Thanksgiving was celebrated on the third Thursday in November — not the fourth.

The woman (Sarah Josepha Hale) behind "Mary Had a Little Lamb" is also responsible for Thanksgiving's recognition as a national holiday.

The Pilgrim leader, Governor William Bradford, had organized the first Thanksgiving feast in US in the year 1621 and invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians also to the feast.