Tough Thanksgiving Quiz: multiple choice
3 of the 18 questions have four options to choose from; the others stay as normal questions, because no fair wrong answers could be found for them. Tap an option to see if you are right.
1. At the 1621 harvest feast at Plymouth, the Pilgrims were joined by about 90 Wampanoag men. Who was the Wampanoag leader (sachem) who came with them?
Massasoit (also known as Ousamequin)
2. The Pilgrims were helped by an English-speaking Native American named Tisquantum, better known as Squanto. To which tribe did he belong, and what did he teach the colonists to put in the ground with their corn seed?
The Patuxet. He taught them to bury fish with the corn seed as fertiliser.
3. Which governor of Plymouth Colony wrote "Of Plymouth Plantation", the main history of the Pilgrims' early years?
William Bradford
4. According to Edward Winslow's eyewitness account of the 1621 feast, what did the Wampanoag go out and bring back as their contribution to the meal?
Five deer
5. Which president issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation under the US Constitution, and in which year?
George Washington, in 1789
6. A magazine editor campaigned for 17 years to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, writing to five presidents. Who was she, which magazine did she edit, and which famous nursery rhyme did she write?
Sarah Josepha Hale. She edited Godey's Lady's Book and wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb".
7. Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War. Which member of his cabinet actually wrote the proclamation?
William Seward (Secretary of State)
8. Since a 1941 law, Thanksgiving has fallen on the fourth Thursday of November. What are its earliest and latest possible dates?
Earliest 22 November, latest 28 November
10. Two NFL teams traditionally host a game every Thanksgiving. Name both, and the decade in which each tradition began.
The Detroit Lions (since 1934, the 1930s) and the Dallas Cowboys (since 1966, the 1960s)
11. Presidents had been given turkeys for years, but which president made the turkey "pardon" an official tradition in 1989? And bonus: what was the unfortunate name of the Virginia petting farm where that first pardoned bird was sent?
George H. W. Bush. The bonus answer is Frying Pan Park (in Herndon, Virginia).
12. According to a famous story, a frozen-food company invented the "TV dinner" in the early 1950s after it was left with about 260 tons of unsold Thanksgiving turkey. Which company?
13. The classic green bean casserole was invented in 1955 in the test kitchen of a soup company. Name the company and the cook who created it.
Campbell's. The cook was Dorcas Reilly.
14. Since 1981, a turkey brand has run a phone hotline that answers panicked cooks' questions every November. Which brand?
Butterball (the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line)
15. On a male turkey, what is the name of the fleshy flap that hangs down over the beak, and what is the red flap under the chin called?
The flap over the beak is the snood. The flap under the chin is the wattle.
16. In a 1784 letter to his daughter, which Founding Father complained that the bald eagle was a bird of "bad moral character" and called the turkey a much more respectable bird?
17. The oldest continuously run footrace in the United States is a Thanksgiving "Turkey Trot", first held in 1896, a few months before the first Boston Marathon. In which city is it run?
Buffalo, New York (the YMCA Turkey Trot)
18. The name "Black Friday" for the day after Thanksgiving is believed to have been made popular in the 1950s and 60s by the police of which city, who dreaded the traffic and crowds?
19. Which folk singer's 18-minute talking blues song, about a Thanksgiving dinner and an arrest for littering, is played on many American radio stations every Thanksgiving?
Arlo Guthrie ("Alice's Restaurant")
ANSWERS
1. Massasoit (also known as Ousamequin)
2. The Patuxet. He taught them to bury fish with the corn seed as fertiliser.
3. William Bradford
4. Five deer
5. George Washington, in 1789
6. Sarah Josepha Hale. She edited Godey's Lady's Book and wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb".
7. William Seward (Secretary of State)
8. Earliest 22 November, latest 28 November
10. The Detroit Lions (since 1934, the 1930s) and the Dallas Cowboys (since 1966, the 1960s)
11. George H. W. Bush. The bonus answer is Frying Pan Park (in Herndon, Virginia).
12. D Swanson
13. Campbell's. The cook was Dorcas Reilly.
14. Butterball (the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line)
15. The flap over the beak is the snood. The flap under the chin is the wattle.
16. C Benjamin Franklin
17. Buffalo, New York (the YMCA Turkey Trot)
18. C Philadelphia
19. Arlo Guthrie ("Alice's Restaurant")