Everything you ever wanted to know about the hero of Thanksgiving: the turkey!
Did you know?...
- That turkeys can drown if they look up when it's raining
- A wild turkey has excellent vision and hearing. Their field of vision is about 270 degrees
- A spooked turkey can run at speeds up to 20 miles per hour
- Benjamin Franklin wanted the national bird to be a turkey
- Turkeys are able to adapt to a wide variety of habitats. However, most turkeys are found in hardwood forests with grassy areas

November Facts:
-November is the eleventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days.
-The Latin translation of "novem" is nine, for it was originally the ninth month on the Roman calander.
-November begins on the same day of the week as March every year and also February except in leap years
- In Finnish, November is called marraskuu, meaning "month of the dead"
- In Xhosa, November is called ngeyeNkanga, meaning "month of the small yellow daisies"
- November in the Northern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent to May in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa
- Around November 17, the Leonids meteor shower reaches its peak

Listen up novelists, smokers and bearded peoples alike...
November happens to be-
Tobacco Awarness Month
NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month
National Beard Month
Diabetes Awarness Month
National Native American and Native Alaskan Month

"G'day Mate" - On the first Tuesday in November, Australians can look forward to the Melbourne Cup horse race.

Here's to the Troops - Americans honor their veterans on November 11th (it was origianlly in honor of Armistice Day celebrating WWI vets., but post-WWII it was changed to Veterans Day to honor veterans from all wars) The holiday's observance was at one time moved to the fourth Monday of October in order to allow for long weekends. However, after protests by veterans groups it was moved back to November 11th in an effort to retain the importance of the holiday.

On The Menu:
Unlike today's feast consisting of turkey, stuffing, cranberry and so on..., the original Thanksgiving menu probably consisited of the following items-
Seethed [boiled] Lobster
Roasted Goose
Boiled Turkey
Fricase of Coney
Pudding of Indian Corn Meal with dried Whortleberries
Seethed Cod
Roasted Duck
Stewed Pumpkin
Roasted Venison with Mustard Sauce
Savory Pudding of Hominy
Fruit and Holland Cheese

Presidential Turkey Pardons:
Every year before the Thanksgiving holiday, the President chooses 2 turkeys who will be spared from ending up on your dining room table. In a ceremony that takes place at the White House one official turkey is pardonned as well as an alternate gobbler.
Names for the lucky birds are chosen by voters on the White House website. Here is a list of some previous names:
2003- Stars and Stripes
2004- Biscuit and Gravy
2005- Marshmallow and Yam

Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation:
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defiance, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwell in the Heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverance and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.

In my day, we didn't have water. We had to smash together our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
(Diana Hugue)