Introduction
Thanksgiving is the one day of the year when three or four generations sit at the same table for hours. A round of trivia between the turkey and the pie gives everyone something to talk about besides politics, and it gets the kids off their phones.
The best Thanksgiving trivia questions surprise people. The 1621 harvest feast probably had venison instead of turkey and no pumpkin pie. Black Friday was named by traffic police. The Macy’s parade once released its giant balloons into the sky and paid a reward to anyone who brought one back.
We’ve written 100 Thanksgiving trivia questions with answers across ten themed rounds, from an easy kids’ round to a hard history round for adults, with every fact checked against historical sources. Each question has four multiple-choice options, instant scoring and a short explanation. Want a printable list for the dinner table? Open “Show all questions and answers” under any round.
Round 1: The First Thanksgiving & the Pilgrims
Most of what people “know” about the first Thanksgiving comes from 19th-century paintings and school plays. The real story is stranger and more interesting.
Start here with 10 questions on the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag, and the 1621 harvest celebration at Plymouth.
The Mayflower, the Wampanoag, Massasoit, Squanto, and the three-day harvest feast of 1621.
In what year did the harvest feast often called the “First Thanksgiving” take place at Plymouth?
Show all 10 questions and answers
In what year did the harvest feast often called the “First Thanksgiving” take place at Plymouth?
Answer: 1621
The feast took place in the autumn of 1621, almost a year after the Pilgrims arrived. 1607 is the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, England’s first permanent colony in America.
What was the name of the ship that carried the Pilgrims to America in 1620?
Answer: Mayflower
The Mayflower set out with a second ship, the Speedwell, which leaked so badly that it had to turn back. The Mayflower made the 66-day crossing alone.
Which Native American people joined the Pilgrims at the 1621 harvest feast?
Answer: Wampanoag
The Wampanoag have lived in what is now southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island for more than 12,000 years. Their descendants, including the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag tribes, still live there today.
Which Wampanoag leader came to the 1621 feast with about 90 of his men?
Answer: Massasoit
Massasoit (whose personal name was Ousamequin) had agreed a mutual-defense treaty with the colonists in March 1621. The alliance lasted for the rest of his life.
Which Patuxet man, who spoke English, showed the Pilgrims how to grow corn using fish as fertilizer?
Answer: Squanto (Tisquantum)
Tisquantum had been kidnapped by an English captain in 1614 and spent years in Spain and England. When he finally returned home, his entire village had died in an epidemic.
The Mayflower carried 102 passengers. About how many were still alive after the first winter?
Answer: About 50
Disease, cold and poor food killed roughly half the colonists during the winter of 1620–21. Many of them were living on the ship while houses were built on shore.
Plymouth Colony was founded in which present-day US state?
Answer: Massachusetts
The Pilgrims had permission to settle near the Hudson River, but storms pushed them north to Cape Cod. They signed the Mayflower Compact before going ashore and founded Plymouth in December 1620.
How long did the 1621 harvest celebration last?
Answer: About three days
Edward Winslow wrote that the Wampanoag stayed for three days. The guests and colonists shared food, and the colonists showed off their muskets.
Which eyewitness account is the main source for what happened at the 1621 feast?
Answer: A letter by colonist Edward Winslow
Winslow’s letter of December 1621 was published in London in 1622 in a pamphlet now known as “Mourt’s Relation.” William Bradford’s later history also mentions the harvest, without describing the feast in detail.
According to Edward Winslow, what did the Wampanoag guests bring to the 1621 feast?
Answer: Five deer
Winslow wrote that the Wampanoag “went out and killed five deer, which they brought.” Venison was probably the main meat, alongside wildfowl the colonists had shot.
The only eyewitness account mentions five deer brought by the Wampanoag and wildfowl shot by the colonists. The fowl may have included wild turkey, but ducks and geese are just as likely.
Round 2: How Thanksgiving Became a National Holiday
Thanksgiving was celebrated on different days in different states for most of the 1800s. It took a determined magazine editor, a wartime president, and an act of Congress to fix the date.
Ten questions on the presidents, proclamations and shopping days that shaped the modern holiday.
Washington, Lincoln, Sarah Josepha Hale, “Franksgiving,” turkey pardons, and the origin of Black Friday.
Which president proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War?
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Which president proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War?
Answer: Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln’s proclamation of October 3, 1863 set aside the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving. Every president since has issued a Thanksgiving proclamation each year.
Which magazine editor, also the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” campaigned for 17 years to make Thanksgiving a national holiday?
Answer: Sarah Josepha Hale
Sarah Josepha Hale wrote editorials and letters to five presidents. Her 1863 letter to Lincoln is credited with persuading him to issue his proclamation.
Who issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation under the US Constitution, in 1789?
Answer: George Washington
At Congress’s request, Washington declared Thursday, November 26, 1789 a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer.” It was a one-off, not the start of an annual holiday.
On which day is Thanksgiving celebrated in the United States?
Answer: The fourth Thursday of November
Because it is tied to the fourth Thursday, the date moves between November 22 and November 28.
Which president moved Thanksgiving a week earlier in 1939 to lengthen the Christmas shopping season, a change mocked as “Franksgiving”?
Answer: Franklin D. Roosevelt
November 1939 had five Thursdays, and retailers worried a late Thanksgiving would hurt Depression-era sales. States split over which date to follow, and some families celebrated twice.
In what year did Congress pass the law fixing Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November?
Answer: 1941
After two years of confusion, Congress settled the matter and Roosevelt signed the joint resolution on December 26, 1941, less than three weeks after Pearl Harbor.
Which president refused to proclaim a day of thanksgiving, believing it would break the separation of church and state?
Answer: Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson saw a federal day of prayer as the government endorsing religion. Washington and Adams had both issued proclamations, and Madison resumed them during the War of 1812.
Which president gave the first formal “pardon” to a Thanksgiving turkey at the White House, in 1989?
Answer: George H. W. Bush
Turkeys had been presented to presidents for decades. Kennedy spared one in 1963 and Reagan joked about a pardon in 1987, but Bush made the pardon an official part of the ceremony.
Who first used the name “Black Friday” for the day after Thanksgiving, in the 1950s and 60s?
Answer: Philadelphia police officers
Philadelphia police used it for the gridlock caused by shoppers and visitors arriving for the Army–Navy football game. Retailers later recast it as the day stores go “into the black,” or into profit.
Which online shopping day, named in 2005, falls on the Monday after Thanksgiving?
Answer: Cyber Monday
The National Retail Federation’s Shop.org coined “Cyber Monday” after noticing that online sales jumped when people returned to fast office internet connections after the holiday weekend.
Sarah Josepha Hale wrote to five presidents over 17 years asking for a national Thanksgiving. Abraham Lincoln finally agreed in 1863.
Round 3: Thanksgiving Food Trivia
Americans eat more on Thanksgiving than on any other day of the year, and almost every dish on the table has a surprising backstory.
Ten questions on the turkey, sides and desserts, and which of them the Pilgrims never tasted.
Cranberry bogs, pumpkin pie, green bean casserole, marshmallow sweet potatoes, and the 1621 menu.
According to the National Turkey Federation, about what share of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving?
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According to the National Turkey Federation, about what share of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving?
Answer: Nearly 90%
The National Turkey Federation estimates that nearly 88% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving, which works out to more than 40 million birds.
Which tart red berry, native to North America, is cooked into a sauce served with Thanksgiving turkey?
Answer: Cranberry
Cranberries grow on low vines in sandy bogs. At harvest time the bogs are often flooded, so the berries, which contain pockets of air, float to the surface to be collected.
Which pie is the most traditional Thanksgiving dessert?
Answer: Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin pie recipes appear in American cookbooks from the 1790s onward. Sarah Josepha Hale promoted it in her magazine as a centerpiece of the Thanksgiving table.
Green bean casserole was invented in 1955 in the test kitchen of which company?
Answer: Campbell Soup Company
Dorcas Reilly created the recipe using Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, green beans and crispy fried onions. Her original handwritten recipe card is now held by the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
What topping is often baked on top of a sweet potato casserole?
Answer: Marshmallows
Marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes date back to a 1917 recipe booklet by a marshmallow maker. Pecan streusel is the most popular alternative.
Which US state grows the most cranberries?
Answer: Wisconsin
Wisconsin produces more than half of the US cranberry crop, well ahead of Massachusetts. The cranberry is Wisconsin’s official state fruit.
Which US state grows the most pumpkins, mostly for canned pumpkin purée?
Answer: Illinois
Illinois harvests more pumpkins than any other state, most of them a variety bred for processing. Much of the country’s canned pumpkin is packed at a plant in Morton, Illinois, the self-styled “Pumpkin Capital of the World.”
Which US state raises the most turkeys?
Answer: Minnesota
Minnesota raises around 40 million turkeys a year according to USDA figures, followed by North Carolina and Arkansas.
Stuffing baked in a dish rather than inside the bird is often called what, especially in the American South?
Answer: Dressing
The Victorians thought “stuffing” sounded crude, so “dressing” became the polite word, and it stuck in the South. In parts of Pennsylvania it is also called “filling.”
Which of these was almost certainly not served at the 1621 harvest feast?
Answer: Pumpkin pie
The colonists had no ovens for baking pies and very little sugar or butter. Pumpkins may have been eaten stewed or roasted, but pie came much later.
Snoopy has appeared as a Macy’s balloon more times than any other character since his debut in 1968.
Round 4: Turkey Facts & Fun
The turkey is the star of the day, but few people know much about the bird itself.
Ten questions on turkey names, bodies, speed and history, with a few facts that will surprise even hunters.
Toms and poults, snoods and wattles, Ben Franklin’s favorite bird, and color-changing heads.
What is an adult male turkey called?
Show all 10 questions and answers
What is an adult male turkey called?
Answer: A tom
Male turkeys are toms or gobblers, and a young male is a jake. A female is a hen, and a drake is a male duck.
What is a baby turkey called?
Answer: A poult
Turkey chicks are poults. A cygnet is a baby swan, a gosling a baby goose, and a kid a baby goat.
What is the fleshy flap that hangs over a male turkey’s beak called?
Answer: Snood
The snood can swell and lengthen when a tom is trying to impress hens. The wattle is the red skin that hangs under the chin, and the beard is a tuft of bristly feathers on the chest.
Which Founding Father wrote that the turkey was “a much more respectable bird” than the bald eagle?
Answer: Benjamin Franklin
Franklin made the remark in a 1784 letter to his daughter, mocking the design of a medal. Despite the popular myth, he never formally proposed the turkey as the national bird.
Can wild turkeys fly?
Answer: Yes, in short bursts, and they roost in trees at night
Wild turkeys are strong fliers over short distances and sleep in trees to avoid predators. Farm-raised turkeys are bred to be so heavy that most cannot fly.
About how fast can a wild turkey run?
Answer: 25 mph
Wild turkeys can run at around 25 mph (40 km/h), about as fast as a top sprinter in short bursts.
Which famous turkey call is made only by males?
Answer: The gobble
Toms gobble to attract hens and announce themselves to rivals, and the sound can carry up to a mile. Hens communicate with clucks, purrs and yelps.
Where were turkeys first domesticated?
Answer: Mexico, by ancient Mesoamerican peoples
Turkeys were domesticated in Mesoamerica at least 2,000 years ago and taken to Europe by Spanish explorers. English speakers confused them with guinea fowl, which arrived via Turkish traders, and the name stuck.
About how many feathers does an adult turkey have?
Answer: About 5,500
A mature turkey has around 5,000 to 6,000 feathers. The male’s tail fans out into a display of 18 large feathers when he struts.
A male turkey’s bare head can change color with his mood. Which colors can it show?
Answer: Red, white and blue
Changes in blood flow turn the skin bright red, pale white or blue. Scientists think the colors signal excitement, health and status to hens and rival males.
Round 5: The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
For millions of families, Thanksgiving morning means the Macy’s parade on TV while the turkey roasts.
Ten questions on a century of giant balloons, floats and Broadway performances in Manhattan.
Zoo animals in 1924, Felix the Cat, Snoopy’s record, the wartime pause, and Santa’s grand finale.
In what year was the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade held?
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In what year was the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade held?
Answer: 1924
Macy’s employees, many of them immigrants, organised the first parade in 1924 to celebrate the holiday and promote the store. It was then called the Macy’s Christmas Parade.
In the first parade, live animals walked the route. Where did they come from?
Answer: The Central Park Zoo
Camels, elephants, bears and monkeys were borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. They were replaced by giant balloons in 1927 because the animals frightened children.
Which cartoon cat was the first character balloon in the parade, in 1927?
Answer: Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat was the silent-film star of the day. The early balloons were filled with air rather than helium and held up on sticks before the switch to helium.
Which character has appeared as a parade balloon more times than any other?
Answer: Snoopy
Snoopy first floated down the route in 1968 and has appeared in several versions, including as an astronaut and a Flying Ace, more often than any other character.
Why was the Macy’s parade cancelled from 1942 to 1944?
Answer: World War II, when rubber and helium were needed for the war effort
Macy’s deflated its balloons and donated about 650 pounds of rubber to the government. The parade returned in 1945.
Who traditionally arrives at the very end of the Macy’s parade?
Answer: Santa Claus
Santa’s float closes every parade and officially opens the Christmas shopping season. Tom Turkey usually leads the parade near the front.
Which gas fills the giant parade balloons?
Answer: Helium
The balloons are inflated with helium on the day before the parade, outside the American Museum of Natural History. The “balloon inflation” has become an event of its own.
Which 1947 film opens with real footage of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?
Answer: Miracle on 34th Street
Edmund Gwenn, who played Kris Kringle, rode in the real 1946 parade as Santa so the scenes could be filmed. He won an Oscar for the role.
About how many people watch the Macy’s parade on TV each year?
Answer: More than 25 million
NBC has reported audiences of more than 25 million viewers in recent years, with about 3.5 million more people watching from the streets of Manhattan.
In the parade’s early years, what happened to the balloons at the end of the route?
Answer: They were released into the sky, with a reward for anyone who returned them
From 1928, Macy’s let the balloons float away and offered a reward for finding them. The practice ended in the 1930s after a balloon wrapped itself around an airplane.
Round 6: Thanksgiving Football Trivia
Football has been part of Thanksgiving for almost 150 years, from Ivy League championships to three NFL games a day.
Ten questions for the fans who keep one eye on the TV during dinner.
The Lions and Cowboys, John Madden’s turducken, Leon Lett’s snow blunder, and the 1876 college game.
Which two NFL teams host a game every Thanksgiving Day?
Show all 10 questions and answers
Which two NFL teams host a game every Thanksgiving Day?
Answer: Detroit Lions & Dallas Cowboys
The Lions and Cowboys host the two afternoon games. A third game, played at night with rotating hosts, was added in 2006.
Since which year have the Detroit Lions traditionally hosted a Thanksgiving game?
Answer: 1934
Lions owner George A. Richards scheduled a game against the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving 1934 to win fans in a baseball town. The tradition paused only during World War II, from 1939 to 1944.
In which year did the Dallas Cowboys begin hosting Thanksgiving games?
Answer: 1966
General manager Tex Schramm agreed to host in 1966 to raise the team’s national profile. The Cowboys have hosted every year since, except 1975 and 1977.
Broadcaster John Madden helped popularize which multi-bird dish during Thanksgiving games?
Answer: Turducken
A turducken is a deboned chicken stuffed inside a deboned duck, stuffed inside a deboned turkey. Madden carved one on air and handed out turkey legs to the winning team’s players.
Since 2006, how many NFL games are usually played on Thanksgiving Day?
Answer: Three
There are three games: Detroit early, Dallas in the afternoon, and a primetime night game. Together they draw some of the biggest TV audiences of the regular season.
What does the nickname “Turkey Bowl” usually describe?
Answer: An informal family or neighborhood football game played on Thanksgiving
Backyard and park “Turkey Bowls” are a tradition in many towns, along with high school rivalry games and morning “Turkey Trot” fun runs.
Thanksgiving football dates back to 1876, when which two colleges played on the holiday?
Answer: Yale & Princeton
The new Intercollegiate Football Association scheduled its championship game between Yale and Princeton for Thanksgiving Day 1876. By the 1890s, thousands of college and high school games were played on the holiday.
In a famous 1993 Thanksgiving blunder, which Dallas Cowboys player slid into a blocked field goal in the snow, handing the Miami Dolphins the win?
Answer: Leon Lett
Had Lett left the ball alone, Dallas would have won. Instead Miami recovered his fumble and kicked a winning field goal as time ran out, in a rare Texas snowstorm.
Since 2023, which streaming service has shown an NFL game on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving?
Answer: Amazon Prime Video
Prime Video streamed the first NFL Black Friday game in November 2023. Netflix, meanwhile, landed the league’s Christmas Day games from 2024.
The Lions’ first Thanksgiving game in 1934 was carried nationwide by which medium?
Answer: Radio, on the NBC network
NBC broadcast the game on 94 radio stations. Thanksgiving football was first shown on national TV in the 1950s.
Round 7: Thanksgiving Movies, TV & Music
Thanksgiving doesn’t have as many films as Christmas, but the ones it has are much loved.
Ten questions on the movies, sitcom episodes and songs that families come back to every November.
Charlie Brown’s toast dinner, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Friends, WKRP, and “Alice’s Restaurant.”
In A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973), what do Snoopy and Linus serve the gang for dinner?
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In A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973), what do Snoopy and Linus serve the gang for dinner?
Answer: Toast, popcorn, pretzels and jelly beans
Peppermint Patty invites herself and her friends, and Charlie Brown can only manage snacks. Snoopy later enjoys a proper turkey dinner with Woodstock.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), about a disastrous trip home for Thanksgiving, stars Steve Martin and which comedian?
Answer: John Candy
John Candy plays Del Griffith, a talkative shower-curtain-ring salesman. Writer and director John Hughes based the story on his own travel nightmares.
In the Friends episode “The One with All the Thanksgivings,” which character puts a turkey on her head to win Chandler over?
Answer: Monica
Monica wears the turkey with a fez and sunglasses, and Chandler tells her he loves her. Friends made a Thanksgiving episode in every one of its ten seasons.
In another Friends Thanksgiving episode, what does Rachel accidentally add to her English trifle?
Answer: Beef sautéed with peas and onions
Two pages of her cookbook were stuck together, so she combined a trifle with a shepherd’s pie. Joey loves it anyway.
Which sitcom’s 1978 Thanksgiving episode ends with the line “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly”?
Answer: WKRP in Cincinnati
In “Turkeys Away,” the station manager drops live turkeys from a helicopter as a promotional stunt. TV Guide ranked it among the greatest TV episodes of all time.
In the animated film Free Birds (2013), where do two turkeys travel in a time machine?
Answer: The first Thanksgiving, to take turkey off the menu
Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson voice the turkeys, who try to change history so that turkeys are never eaten on Thanksgiving.
Who directed Home for the Holidays (1995), a comedy about a chaotic family Thanksgiving starring Holly Hunter?
Answer: Jodie Foster
It was Jodie Foster’s second film as director. Robert Downey Jr. co-stars as Holly Hunter’s mischievous younger brother.
Which film features Wednesday Addams taking over a summer-camp Thanksgiving play?
Answer: Addams Family Values (1993)
Christina Ricci’s Wednesday, cast as Pocahontas, turns the camp’s cheerful pageant into a revolt. It is one of the most-quoted scenes in the film.
In Gilmore Girls (“A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving”), how many Thanksgiving dinners do Lorelai and Rory attend in one day?
Answer: Four
They eat at Sookie’s, the Kims’, Luke’s diner and finally Emily and Richard’s, where the evening ends in an argument.
Which 18-minute song by Arlo Guthrie, about a Thanksgiving Day littering arrest, is played on many US radio stations every Thanksgiving?
Answer: Alice’s Restaurant Massacree
The 1967 talking blues is based on a true story from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1965. “This Land Is Your Land” was written by Arlo’s father, Woody Guthrie.
Round 8: Easy Thanksgiving Trivia for Kids
This round is for the kids’ table. The questions are simple enough for children aged 5 and up, and each answer teaches something new.
Read the questions aloud and give a small prize for every right answer.
Pumpkins, wishbones, drumsticks, the cornucopia, and the Three Sisters.
In which month is Thanksgiving celebrated in the United States?
Show all 10 questions and answers
In which month is Thanksgiving celebrated in the United States?
Answer: November
US Thanksgiving is in November. Canada celebrates earlier, in October, because its harvest comes sooner.
Which orange vegetable do people carve at Halloween and bake into a pie at Thanksgiving?
Answer: Pumpkin
Pumpkins are technically a fruit, because they hold seeds, and a member of the squash family. The biggest ever grown weighed more than 2,700 pounds.
What is the name of the horn-shaped basket overflowing with fruit and vegetables that is a symbol of Thanksgiving?
Answer: A cornucopia
Cornucopia means “horn of plenty” in Latin. It comes from Greek mythology and stands for a good harvest.
Which turkey bone do two people pull apart to make a wish?
Answer: The wishbone
Whoever ends up with the bigger piece gets their wish. The wishbone’s scientific name is the furcula, and it helps birds fly.
What do we call a turkey’s leg when we eat it?
Answer: A drumstick
The lower part of the leg looks like a stick used to play a drum, which is how it got its name.
In which season does Thanksgiving fall?
Answer: Fall (autumn)
Thanksgiving celebrates the end of the harvest, when farmers have gathered their crops before winter arrives.
Did the Pilgrims really wear only black clothes and hats with big buckles?
Answer: No, they wore colorful clothes, and buckles came into fashion later
The Pilgrims wore browns, greens, reds and violets as well as black. The buckled-hat look comes from 19th-century artists who imagined them that way.
Which animal does the US president “pardon” at the White House every Thanksgiving?
Answer: A turkey
The pardoned turkey and a backup bird are sent to live on a farm or at a university instead of becoming dinner. People can often vote on their names.
Many Native American peoples grew three crops together, called the “Three Sisters.” What were they?
Answer: Corn, beans and squash
The corn gives the beans a pole to climb, the beans add nutrients to the soil, and the squash’s big leaves shade out weeds. The three plants help each other grow.
How many legs does a turkey have?
Answer: Two
Like all birds, turkeys walk on two legs. Male turkeys have sharp spurs on the backs of their legs that they use to fight other males.
Round 9: Thanksgiving & Harvest Festivals Around the World
The United States isn’t the only country that gives thanks for the harvest. Many cultures hold autumn festivals with their own foods and traditions.
Ten questions on how the rest of the world celebrates the season.
Canadian Thanksgiving, Korea’s Chuseok, China’s mooncakes, Sukkot, Liberia, Japan, and Germany.
When is Thanksgiving celebrated in Canada?
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When is Thanksgiving celebrated in Canada?
Answer: The second Monday in October
Canada fixed its Thanksgiving to the second Monday in October in 1957. The earlier date fits Canada’s shorter growing season.
Which English explorer held a thanksgiving ceremony in what is now Canada in 1578, decades before the Pilgrims arrived?
Answer: Martin Frobisher
Frobisher’s crew gave thanks for surviving the voyage while searching for the Northwest Passage, in what is now Nunavut. Canadians sometimes cite it as North America’s first thanksgiving.
What is the name of Korea’s major harvest festival, when families visit ancestral hometowns?
Answer: Chuseok
Chuseok falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. Families share songpyeon (rice cakes) and honor their ancestors at home and at family graves.
Which food is the symbol of China’s Mid-Autumn Festival?
Answer: Mooncakes
Round mooncakes, often filled with lotus-seed paste and salted egg yolk, represent the full moon and family reunion. Fortune cookies are an American invention.
During which Jewish harvest festival do families eat meals in temporary outdoor huts?
Answer: Sukkot
The huts, called sukkahs, recall the shelters the Israelites lived in while wandering the desert. Their roofs are made of branches so that the stars can be seen.
Which West African country, founded partly by freed Black Americans, celebrates a national Thanksgiving Day in November?
Answer: Liberia
Liberia celebrates Thanksgiving on the first Thursday of November, a tradition brought by settlers from the United States in the 1800s.
Japan celebrates Labor Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday rooted in an ancient harvest festival, on which date?
Answer: November 23
Kinrō Kansha no Hi was established in 1948 to honor work and production. It replaced Niiname-sai, the imperial rice harvest festival held on the same day.
Which Caribbean island nation celebrates a Thanksgiving holiday on October 25?
Answer: Grenada
Grenada’s Thanksgiving marks the anniversary of the 1983 US-led intervention on the island.
Britain’s church Harvest Festival is traditionally held on the Sunday nearest which full moon?
Answer: The Harvest Moon
The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox. Schools and churches collect food donations for the festival and decorate with produce.
What is Germany’s harvest thanksgiving festival, usually held on the first Sunday of October, called?
Answer: Erntedankfest
Erntedankfest literally means “harvest thanks festival.” Churches are decorated with crowns of wheat and baskets of produce. Oktoberfest is Munich’s beer festival, which mostly takes place in September.
Round 10: Hard Thanksgiving Trivia for Adults
Save this round for after dessert. These questions are for the history buffs and the relatives who always think they know best.
A perfect score here earns the last slice of pie.
The Mayflower Compact, Plymouth Rock’s late discovery, William Bradford, Leiden, and Ousamequin.
Which agreement, signed aboard ship in November 1620, set up self-government for the Plymouth colonists?
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Which agreement, signed aboard ship in November 1620, set up self-government for the Plymouth colonists?
Answer: The Mayflower Compact
Forty-one male passengers signed the Mayflower Compact before landing, agreeing to form a “civil body politic” and obey its laws. It is often called an early step toward American democracy.
From which English port did the Mayflower make its final departure in September 1620?
Answer: Plymouth
The Mayflower and Speedwell left Southampton in August, but leaks forced them into Dartmouth and then Plymouth. The Mayflower sailed alone from Plymouth on September 6, 1620 (September 16 on today’s calendar).
Plymouth Rock, the supposed landing spot of the Pilgrims, was first identified as such in which year?
Answer: 1741
In 1741, 94-year-old church elder Thomas Faunce pointed out the rock, saying his father had told him about it. No writer from 1620 mentions a rock at all.
How many passengers sailed on the Mayflower in 1620?
Answer: 102
There were 102 passengers and a crew of about 30. One baby, Oceanus Hopkins, was born at sea, and another, Peregrine White, was born aboard ship after it anchored off Cape Cod.
Which Plymouth governor wrote Of Plymouth Plantation, the main history of the colony?
Answer: William Bradford
Bradford was elected governor in 1621 after John Carver died, and served for most of the next 35 years. His manuscript was lost during the American Revolution and found in London in 1855.
Tisquantum (Squanto) learned English after being kidnapped and taken to Europe. Which city did he live in before returning home?
Answer: London
Sold into slavery in Málaga, Spain, he escaped to England and lived in London with a merchant before sailing back to America in 1619.
In which year did the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line begin answering home cooks’ questions?
Answer: 1981
Six home economists answered about 11,000 calls in the hotline’s first season. Today more than 50 experts handle calls, texts and online chats every November and December.
Where did many of the Pilgrims live for about 12 years before sailing to America?
Answer: Leiden, Netherlands
The Separatists left England for the Dutch Republic in 1608 for religious freedom. They chose America partly because they feared their children were becoming Dutch.
Sarah Josepha Hale used which magazine she edited to campaign for a national Thanksgiving?
Answer: Godey’s Lady’s Book
Godey’s Lady’s Book was one of the most widely read magazines in 19th-century America. Hale edited it for 40 years and filled it with Thanksgiving menus and editorials.
“Massasoit” was actually a title meaning “great sachem.” What was the Wampanoag leader’s personal name?
Answer: Ousamequin
Ousamequin kept the peace with Plymouth for 40 years. His son Metacom, known to the English as King Philip, later led the Wampanoag in King Philip’s War (1675–1676).
Thanksgiving Timeline: Key Dates Every Trivia Fan Should Know
The milestones that turned a colonial harvest meal into America’s biggest family holiday. Each one makes a good tie-breaker question.
| Thanksgiving Milestone | Year | What Happened | Trivia-Night Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harvest feast at Plymouth | 1621 | English colonists and Wampanoag men shared a three-day harvest celebration | Edward Winslow’s letter is the only eyewitness account to mention it. |
| First national proclamation | 1789 | George Washington declared a day of public thanksgiving | It was a one-off, set for Thursday, November 26. |
| Thanksgiving becomes annual | 1863 | Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November | Sarah Josepha Hale had campaigned for 17 years. |
| First Macy’s parade | 1924 | Macy’s employees marched with animals from the Central Park Zoo | Giant balloons replaced the animals in 1927. |
| Lions’ first Thanksgiving game | 1934 | Detroit hosted the Chicago Bears | NBC radio carried the game on 94 stations. |
| Fourth Thursday made law | 1941 | Congress ended the “Franksgiving” confusion | Roosevelt signed the bill on December 26, 1941. |
| First formal turkey pardon | 1989 | George H. W. Bush spared a turkey at the White House | Earlier presidents simply sent the bird to a farm or ate it. |
Surprising Thanksgiving Facts for the Dinner Table
Bonus facts for tie-breakers and dinner conversation:
When Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving a week earlier, roughly half the states followed him and the rest kept the old date. Some families, and a few states, celebrated on both Thursdays.
Butterball’s hotline has been helping panicked home cooks since 1981. Its experts are trained to answer everything from thawing times to what to do with a frozen bird the night before.
Fresh, ripe cranberries have pockets of air inside, so they bounce. Growers have long used “bounce boards” to sort good berries from soft ones.
Yale and Princeton played on Thanksgiving in 1876, more than 40 years before the NFL was founded in 1920.