The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6, until Cape Cod was sighted on 9 November 1620.

Written over a period of years by William Bradford, the leader of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, Of Plymouth Plantation is regarded as the most authoritative account of the Pilgrims and the early years of the colony they founded.

There are more than 45 different varieties of pumpkin. They range in color from red to yellow to green and have names like Hooligan, Cotton Candy and Orange Smoothie.

Although wild turkeys spend most of their time on the ground during the day, they sleep in trees at night. Turkeys cannot see well in the dark. Sleeping in trees provides protection from predators that roam and can see at night. They fly up to roost at dusk, and fly down at dawn to begin their daily rituals.

In a letter to Harrison Gray Otis Blake in December 1856, Henry David Thoreau wrote: "My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite--only a sense of existence."

Although many days of thanksgiving were appointed prior to this time, the first national Thanksgiving Day was proclaimed on November 26, 1789 by President George Washington.

The turkeys presented to U.S. President George W. Bush on Thanksgiving Day 2003 were named Stars & Stripes. In subsequent years, they have been named Biscuit & Gravy, Marshmallow & Yam, and Flyer & Fryer.

The Harvest Thanksgiving Festival, Erntedankfest, is a popular German Christian festival in early October. The festival has a significant religious component, and unlike its North American counterpart, it usually does not include large dinners. Many churches get decorated with autumn crops, beautifully arranged in front of the altar. In some places, there are religious processions or parades. Many Bavarian beer festivals, like the Munich Oktoberfest, take place within the vicinity of Erntedankfest.

The world's largest pumpkin pie was made in New Bremen, Ohio. Amazingly, this pie was 20 feet in diameter and weighed 3,699 pounds! This was the biggest attraction at the 2010 New Bremen Pumpkinfest. What's the recipe for a world record pumpkin pie? All you need is 1,212 lbs of canned pumpkin, 2,796 eggs (233 dozen), 109 gallons of evaporated milk, 525 pounds of sugar, 7 pounds of salt and 14.5 pounds of cinnamon.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade began in 1924 with 400 employees marching off from Convent Avenue and 145th Street in New York City. During this time the parade was accompanied not with the oversized balloons of our favorite cartoon characters, but with live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo.