I am a New Zealander and we don’t celebrate thanksgiving here, but most of our audience is in the United States and I feel a very kindred connection to you all.

These last few years has been very difficult for me with the deaths of some very important people and the flow on from that. You have all been incredible in welcoming me back this year. In 2019, the thing I am most thankful for is you: the readers readers.

So, thank you for making a very difficult time a little easier for me. I hope you have the happiest of Thanksgivings. You have all of my most heartfelt and genuine best wishes.

—Jamie Frater (Chief editor)

The story of Thanksgiving isn’t exactly what you learned in school. There’s a lot more to it than just Pilgrims and Native Americans eating turkey and cranberry sauce. There’s a whole long, winding history that created the holiday Americans celebrate today—and it’s not all what you think.

From the first Thanksgiving feast in the Arctic to the days when kids went door-to-door asking for treats in their Thanksgiving costumes, Thanksgiving’s been through a lot of changes most people never hear about. But without every one of these moments, the Thanksgiving we know today simply wouldn’t exist.

10 The First Thanksgiving Was Held By Arctic Explorers

The first Thanksgiving was held in 1578, more than 40 years before the Pilgrims had even arrived at Plymouth—and it was an awful lot colder. It was held among the ice of what would eventually be called Frobisher Bay, and it would become known as the first Canadian Thanksgiving.

When Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving, it has nothing to do with Puritan Pilgrims and Native Americans eating together at Plymouth. They’re commemorating the day the Arctic explorer Martin Frobisher arrived to begin his search for the Northwest Passage. He had already a lost a ship in the ice of the Canadian Arctic, and to keep spirits high, he and his men paused to hold mass, have a meal, and give thanks for the fact that they were still alive.

It was a little bit less glamorous than the holiday we enjoy today. These were Arctic explorers, so they didn’t exactly have turkey. Instead, it’s believed that the first Thanksgiving meal was a scrumptious, one-course repast of salted beef rations and stale crackers.^[1]

9 The Pilgrims Ate Lobster, Swan, And Seal

The first Thanksgiving in what would become the United States didn’t happen until 1621, when the Pilgrims at Plymouth, thrilled that they’d had a good harvest, invited their neighbors from the Wampanoag tribe to join them for a feast. They didn’t exactly serve what you’d expect, though.

The Pilgrims put pretty well everything they could find on the table. We don’t know exactly what that entails, but they definitely couldn’t have served pie, stuffing, or cranberry sauce. For the most part, they just ate meat—which probably included turkey, but that would’ve just been a side dish. Instead, most of the table was probably filled with venison and pigeons.

There were some stranger choices, too. Swans are believed to have been caught, killed, cooked, and put on the table. Seafood was abundant. They ate lobster, clams, and they may even have eaten seal.^[2] So, if you want a truly traditional Thanksgiving this year, skip the turkey and plop a full swan on your family’s table.

8 The Pilgrims Put The Native Chief’s Head On A Stick

One friendly meal didn’t exactly mean the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag had a lifetime of friendship. After the first Thanksgiving, the Wampanoag chief Massasoit passed away and left his sons, Wamsutta and Metacomet, in charge of the tribe—and things didn’t exactly stay peaceful.

The Pilgrims invited Chief Wamsutta over for a feast—but this time, it wasn’t about being friends. They thought Wamsutta was dangerous, so they slipped some poison into his meal. Shortly after sitting down to eat, Wamsutta keeled over and died.

Metacomet took over next, and again, the Pilgrims tried to invite him over for dinner. Metacomet, though, wasn’t about to fall for that one. Instead, he waged war, attacking more than half of the English settlements in America and killing 600 people.

In the end, though, the Wampanoag lost. The Pilgrims managed to run Metacomet down. They dismembered his body and put his head on a pole over Plymouth.^[3] It stayed there for 25 years, looking down on the spot where his father and the Pilgrims had celebrated the first Thanksgiving.

7 Children Went Door-To-Door Asking For Treats

During the 19th century, a brand new Thanksgiving tradition began: “Ragamuffin Day.” Children started dressing up, going door-to-door, and asking for treats. Thanksgiving, for a while, was an awful lot like Halloween—except that it was an awful lot crueler.

The Thanksgiving Ragamuffin tradition started in Massachusetts when a group of poor children who were starving to death went to their neighbors’ doors begging for scraps of food, asking, “Something for Thanksgiving?”

The rich kids saw the plight of the less fortunate, and they thought it was hilarious. As a cruel joke, they started imitating them. Every Thanksgiving, the wealthier kids started putting on tattered clothes and going door-to-door pretending to be beggars. In return, people would hand out pennies, apples, or pieces of candy.^[4]

Going door-to-door was a Thanksgiving tradition for decades. It didn’t end until the Great Depression hit, and suddenly nobody had any pennies to share. Pretending to a beggar wasn’t as funny as it once had been, and the fad died out.

6 The Thanksgiving Tradition Of Burning Small Children

Ragamuffin Day, in New York, was even crueler. It evolved into its own unique festival in the Big Apple, with its own distinct traditions. The oddest one has to be the “red pennies”—the unique New York tradition of spending Thanksgiving Day hurting children.

A “red penny” was a penny that had been heated up in the stove until it was too hot to touch. When the kids in the neighborhood hit the streets in their costumes and started going door-to-door, some New Yorkers would go to their windows and throw these scalding hot coins out onto the streets. Then they’d howl in laughter as they watched small children burn themselves.

“I remember the fun we had,” one New Yorker told a reporter after the fad of Ragamuffin Day had died out. “When we kids picked ‘em up we got our fingers burned. I remember how my fingers got blistered.” Then, nostalgic for the lost days of being tricked into injuring himself, he sighed and said, “They don’t have any real fun like that anymore.”^[5]

5 We Wouldn’t Have Thanksgiving Without ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’

Thanksgiving would never have become a federal holiday if it wasn’t for one woman: Sarah Josepha Hale. Or, as she’s better known, the woman who wrote “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”

Hale did more than just write a children’s song—she also waged an absurdly long and hard-fought battle to make Thanksgiving into a major US holiday. Thanksgiving, Hale believed, had a “deep moral influence” that taught families the value of coming together, or as she called it, “in-gathering.”^[6] And she wouldn’t rest until every family in America was doing it.

Her first novel, Northwood, had a chapter-long description of Thanksgiving and how great it is, worked in just to push her favorite holiday on the public. After it came out, she founded her own magazine for women and filled it with articles on why everyone should celebrate Thanksgiving. And in her spare time, she wrote letters to senators begging them to make it a federal holiday.

She dedicated more than 30 years of her life to making Thanksgiving a holiday—and it worked. Slowly, more and more people started celebrating it. By 1854, 30 states were observing Thanksgiving, mainly because of her.

4 Thanksgiving Became A Holiday To End The Civil War

One of the people Sarah Josepha Hale wrote was President Abraham Lincoln. She’d been worried about the Civil War, she explained, and felt that the US needed to “put aside sectional feelings” and rally around a common cause that everyone could agree upon. And, since Hale was a bit one-note, she figured the perfect cause was Thanksgiving.

Lincoln wasn’t the first president she’d written, but he was the first to listen to her. He took to her immediately. A mere five days after Hale wrote her letter, Thanksgiving was declared a federal holiday.^[7]

Lincoln issued a declaration inviting people “in every part of the United States” to come together and give thanks for the good in the country, partly as a way to improve morale of Union troops and partly to try to rebuild a sense of national identity. He filled the holiday with pictures of Pilgrims coming together, trying to create an idea of united America.

The holiday caught on, in the end, both in the North and the South. But during the war, things weren’t exactly equal. While the Northerners carved up turkeys and enjoyed the feast, people in the South sat down for “starvation parties”—where people would do everything they enjoyed in peacetime except for the one thing they couldn’t afford: eat food.

3 Lincoln Wanted It To Be A Day Of Humiliation And Fasting

Turkey and gratitude had nothing to do with Lincoln’s original vision for Thanksgiving. In 1861, before he read Hale’s letter, he tried making his own brand-new festival to bring the country together. But he didn’t want people to give thanks and eat food. He wanted it to be—in his own words—a day of “public humiliation, prayer and fasting.”^[8]

The day would be packed with festivities. Lincoln’s holiday was to start with people acknowledging the “Supreme Government of God” and bowing “in humble submission to his chastisements.” Then they were to publicly confess and deplore their sins and transgressions and beg for forgiveness.

Lincoln’s hope was that, if America repented of its sins, God would bring an end to the Civil War. His day of self-hatred, starvation, and prayer, though, didn’t exactly catch on quite the same way Thanksgiving did.

2 Lincoln’s Son Begged For The First Turkey’s Life

The tradition of having the president pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving started on the very first year of the holiday—and it all came out of the sympathy of a ten-year-old boy.

The Lincolns had a live turkey sent to the White House for their dinner in 1863. Lincoln’s young son Tad got the chance to see the animal that would be soon be killed, fried up, and placed on his dinner table, and when he realized what was going to happen, he became terrified. He begged his father not to kill the turkey, telling him that it had “as good a right to live as anybody else.” The president was touched. He agreed, and the White House brought in a new pet turkey.

The tradition didn’t exactly catch on right away, though. The presidents who followed didn’t really share Lincoln’s sentimentality. They followed his tradition of having live turkeys sent to White House and sometimes posed for pictures with them—but they went ahead and killed and ate them anyway.

It took until 1963 before JFK became the first president since Lincoln to let the turkey live—exactly 100 years after Tad Lincoln had saved the White House’s first Thanksgiving turkey.^[9] JFK was assassinated three days later.

1 FDR Changed The Date To Increase Holiday Profits

Thanksgiving went through one more change in 1939, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt changed the date—purely so that people would spend more money on Christmas presents.

President Roosevelt realized that people didn’t start shopping for Christmas presents until Thanksgiving was over. He figured that if Thanksgiving was a week earlier, people would start shopping earlier and end up spending more money. And so he moved Thanksgiving from the last Thursday in November to the second-last Thursday, purely to boost the economy.

People were furious. They started calling his date “Franksgiving,” and some states refused to recognize it. Alf Landon, who had run against FDR in 1936, even declared that changing the date of Thanksgiving made Roosevelt “a Hitler.”^[10]

It actually worked, though—people did spend more money, and the economy did improve. In the end, Roosevelt got everyone to calm down by switching the date again, now declaring that Thanksgiving would be on the “fourth Thursday in November” but “never on the month’s last two days,” which was confusing enough that nobody bothered to argue about it.

Thanksgiving is usually a time for watching parades and stuffing one’s face with turkey and cranberry sauce. But the United States has always taken pride in celebrating the very essence of this holiday. Thanksgiving is a time to help others, to embrace that community spirit and give a little back. Shelters provide warm places for the homeless. Charities raise money for many important causes. And families gather round the table to give thanks. Thanksgiving reminds us that the United States is a truly warm and welcoming place.

From emergency service workers to the volunteers who man the food banks, many ordinary men and women will spend this Thanksgiving helping others. So let’s take some time to celebrate just some of these wonderful people and their sacrifices.

See Also: 10 Ways The History Of Thanksgiving Is Nothing Like You Imagined

10 Saving a Baby’s Life

On Thanksgiving in 2011, firefighters arrived at the scene of a Brooklyn apartment that was engulfed in flames. The fire began when a careless smoker dropped a lit cigarette on a mattress. In a frantic bid to douse the fire, one of the residents attempted to move the mattress into the bathroom. =The plan failed spectacularly, causing the fire to spread even faster.

The New York City Fire Department arrived within less than three minutes. One of the teams set about extinguishing the fire, while the others started to pull survivors from the smoke-filled building. One of the occupants leapt from a third-story window onto the awning of the adjacent building. The man was trapped and covered in blood. Firefighter Matthew Hanley, of Ladder 122, retrieved the man.

Meanwhile, firefighters David Newberry and Richard Myers rushed into the apartment to rescue the remaining residents. Myers successfully extracted a man and a woman. Amid the ruins, Newberry discovered a young baby who was no longer breathing. Firefighters Andrew Hartshorne and Neil Malone worked with the EMT crew to administer CPR. The youngster, Josiah Alexis, remained lifeless for almost six nerve-racking minutes. Thankfully, the crew managed to bring Josiah back. “It’s like a song to your ears to hear that baby get its breath on its own,” said Malone.

It took the firefighters an hour to control the blaze. The entire family was taken to hospital and placed on ventilators. “Make no mistake about it, there’s five people alive today due to coordinated efforts of FDNY,” explained FDNY Deputy Chief Kevin Woods, “and that, on this Thanksgiving, we are very thankful for.”^[1]

9 Disabled Teen Fulfills Thanksgiving Wish

Drew Bell was born with spina bifida, a congenital defect that led to problems with the development of his spine. Over the years, the youngster has undergone a total of seven corrective surgeries. Drew can no longer walk and remains confined to a wheelchair. But this has not stopped him from living a normal life.

After enrolling at Keller High School in Texas, he decided to join the school’s 400-strong marching band. Drew served as one of the band’s trumpeters and formed a strong friendship with fellow marcher Kailey Summons. But there was one obvious problem. Drew could not maneuver his wheelchair and play the trumpet at the same time. When the band directors pitched the idea of another student helping Drew during his marches, Kailey immediately volunteered. The two practiced together from that day on. This meant that Kailey sacrificed the opportunity to play her own instrument during the school’s football “Spirit Shows.”

“I just did it to make sure he knew that he always had a place in the band, and he always will,” Kailey explained. The 18-year-old had other commitments, too. As the leader of the brass section, she had to perform uniform checks and organize the freshman performers.

In 2018, Drew got to fulfill his wish of appearing in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Kailey was initially set to perform alongside him. But Drew’s mother, Kimberly Bell, wanted Kailey to march like any other band member. So Kimberly stepped in to push her son instead. “I’m just thankful this worked out because I want her to shine and have her moment,” she explained.^[2]

8 Texting the Wrong Number

In 2016, Jamal Hinton was surprised to see an offer of Thanksgiving dinner pop up on his phone. “Thanksgiving dinner is at my house on Nov. 24 at 3:00pm. Let me know if you’re coming. Hope to see you all.” The woman claimed it was his grandmother. Hinton was skeptical. “Well, it was either the wrong number or my grandma learned how to use her phone,” Hinton mocked.

When the 17-year-old asked for a photo, it became clear that Jamal was speaking to someone else’s grandmother. Jokingly, he asked if a plate was still up for grabs. The faux grandmother, Wanda Dench, insisted that Jamal attend her Thanksgiving dinner anyway. So that’s exactly what he did.

The happy accident has now sparked a tradition. In 2018, the Arizona teen attended Thanksgiving dinner at Wanda’s for the third year running. He even brought pumpkin pie. Jamal and his partner intend to invite Wanda over for future Thanksgiving dinners, once they get their own place. After the media drew attention to the story, Kraft Heinz gave Wanda a year’s supply of Stove Top stuffing. She donated most of the stuffing to a local food bank.^[3]

7 Extending the Family

National Adoption Day is observed on the Saturday before each Thanksgiving. Many states take the opportunity to rehome as many youngsters as possible. Every year, hundreds of events are organized nationwide to raise awareness of the 400,000+ children currently in the foster care system.

Brian Palmucci, a Massachusetts-based criminal defense attorney, knew for years that he would adopt a child. He witnessed vulnerable children entering the system for many reasons. Some parents became hooked on drugs. Others suffered from crippling mental health problems. So, on National Adoption Day 2018, Palmucci returned to his own courthouse and adopted a little boy, Michael.

That day, Brockton District Court united 37 children with new families. Nurse Shelly Sepulveda was there to adopt her sixth child, Kameron. The 9-year-old first met Shelly while he was in hospital battling a rare form of bone cancer. Kameron is now in remission.

A week later, Michael sat down to have Thanksgiving dinner with his new family. “We’re the ones that have been blessed with him, not really the other way around,” explained Allison Palmucci. “He’s changed our lives probably more than we’ve changed his.”^[4]

6 A Feast for the Homeless

It is no secret that California has a problem with homelessness. The authorities estimate that the Golden State was responsible for almost a quarter of all homelessness in the United States last year. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, almost 130,000 homeless people wander the streets of California. Tens of thousands of these people are veterans and young adults.

The Midnight Mission on Skid Row does what it can to help, preparing Thanksgiving dinner for thousands of homeless people each year. The mission also hands out other essential items, including hygiene kits, clothing, and blankets. Of course, many of California’s missions reach out to the needy all year round. They help combat homelessness, poverty, and drug addiction.

It is not unusual to see famous faces handing out Thanksgiving meals on Skid Row. Every year, actress Minnie Driver takes her son along to serve food. She hopes it will teach him to become part of the community and give back. In 2018, Kevin Hart’s daughter persuaded him to drop by on Thanksgiving. His family donated $50,000 to the mission and handed out food and care packages. “I will say I am happy to be a helping hand,” the comedian told the media. “But I think the people that were involved with the Mission on a daily basis… those are the real people that deserve the applause.”

Every Thanksgiving morning, thousands of Los Angeles residents participate in a charity run called the “Turkey Trot.” Adults enter the 5K and 10K trots, while the children take on the “Widdle Wobble” race. The Midnight Mission, which prepares over 400,000 meals annually, uses the proceeds of the run to pay for its supplies.^[5]

5 The 9-Year-Old Shoe Collector

Lynnea Montgomery has always wanted to help others. When Lynnea was just seven years old, she raised nearly $400 to buy clothes for the homeless. The Arizona girl then spent the next two years raising more money for her cause, even going so far as to use her own allowance.

Lynnea’s church would often donate clothes to the homeless around Thanksgiving. However, she noticed that they had received very few donations of shoes. So, the following year, Lynnea hatched a plan. She handed out hand-written flyers, asking Tucson residents to donate pairs of shoes.

The community came through. Nearly 200 pairs were donated over a six-month period. Lynnea even received several bags of shoes from L.A. Dodgers player Alex Verdugo. After washing any used shoes at the local laundromat, Lynnea spent Thanksgiving handing them out to the homeless. The fourth grader was joined by members of the Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church, who had previously given her the Outstanding Volunteer Award. Lynnea spoke about what motivated her to keep doing charity work: “We’re not needy because we are rich as in we’re rich in God, so I know everything will come to me as God pleases, and I want that to come to others, and so I wanted to help others.”^[6]

4 Mattress Mack

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey devastated vast swathes of southern Texas and Louisiana. The Category 4 hurricane inflicted around $125 billion of damage, dumping torrential rain across Houston and displacing nearly 40,000 residents. A staggering 70 percent of Harris County was under water. And the sheer weight of the floods caused Houston to sink two centimeters.

On the morning of August 27, Jim McIngvale waded through his waterlogged home to get ready for another day’s work. But the Houstonian businessman only saw the true scale of the destruction as he made his way to his furniture store. McIngvale, better known as “Mattress Mack,” was determined to help his community. He invited residents to join him at the Gallery Furniture store for food and shelter. He also dispatched his delivery trucks to rescue around 200 residents who were trapped.

When Thanksgiving came around, Mack hosted dinner for the people of Houston. Hundreds of volunteers prepared around 5,000 pounds of turkey and ham. They also served up cranberry sauce, cornbread, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, pizzas, and hotdogs. A whopping 6,000 meals were served that day. Mack also paid for a group of first responders to fly out to Los Angeles and watch the Houston Astros play in the World Series.

Mack has used his wealth for many good deeds over the years. The 68-year-old has raised awareness of mental health issues, funded a mobile stroke unit, and donated furniture to local schools. Mack’s mantra is simple: “The essence of living is giving.”^[7]

3 The Theft that Rallied a Community

Volunteers at a food bank in Toledo, Ohio, were left in despair mere days before Thanksgiving 2017. The team arrived at the Cornucopia Food Pantry to learn that a bunch of crooks had stolen the charity’s only delivery trailer. The trailer was needed to ferry supplies to deprived community members. Without it, the volunteers were left dismantling each pallet of donations. They then had to load the items into their own cars, making the delivery process more difficult and time-consuming.

Executive Director Laura Marsh decided to post details of the incident on Facebook. She was quickly inundated with offers of help. “We started getting phone calls and phone calls and phone calls,” Marsh explained. “My phone was ringing until 2:30 in the morning from people that were interested in helping us.”

With help from the community, the Cornucopia Food Pantry was able to make all of their Thanksgiving deliveries. Local residents used their own trucks to deliver stocks of food and clothing. And a couple from Michigan donated $1,500 to fund a new loading ramp.^[8]

2 Haircuts for Turkeys

This year, barber Nate Rivera wants to make a pact with his clientele. The Kansas business owner says he will offer a free haircut to each customer who donates a turkey. The scheme, “haircuts for turkeys,” is designed to help families that are less fortunate.

Rivera, owner of N8’s Barbershop, understands that the costs associated with hosting Thanksgiving dinner can quickly mount up. Rivera needed a kidney transplant when he was a teenager, leaving his family with costly medical bills. Thankfully, friends and kindly strangers offered to pay for the Rivera family’s Thanksgiving dinner. “You can’t express how thankful I was for people that were wanting to be part of helping others without anything in return,” he said.

1,200 miles away, a Florida hairdresser is devising a similar plan. Casandra Raley will give free haircuts throughout Thanksgiving Day. The 24-hour haircut marathon is Raley’s way of showing appreciation to those who have supported her business. “I’ve been blessed to have clients in this community [who have] stood behind me and continue to come and help my business grow,” she explained. Raley will also provide free meals for her customers’ families and hand out bags of groceries.^[9]

1 The Paradise Firefighters

2018 was the year of California’s most destructive wildfire. The blaze, known as Camp Fire, was caused by a faulty power line above Butte County’s Poe Dam. The fire quickly spread via the dry scrubland, with powerful winds sweeping it into the town of Paradise. Within mere hours, the inferno had laid waste to the entire town. Other regions were badly affected, including Concow, Magalia, and Butte Creek Canyon. The fire tore through 153,000 acres of land, destroyed 18,800 structures, and claimed the lives of 85 people.

Thousands of firefighters were called upon to deal with the fire. The nighttime air turned blood red and was filled with ash and embers. Desperate escapees found themselves stranded on congested highways, watching as their own cars burst into flames. The windows of fire trucks were fitted with fire-resistant blankets. Cal Fire strike teams worked against the traffic to reach the ever-stalking wall of fire. Other teams made a last stand at a local gas station, forming a defensive line to protect fleeing motorists. The unfolding crisis raged for two weeks straight. Miraculously, the fire was halted through a combination of heavy rainfall and the tireless efforts of firefighters.

Even after the firestorm had died down, the emergency services continued their efforts. Over Thanksgiving, firefighters searched for survivors amid the smoldering ruins of Paradise. Cadaver dogs were deployed to sniff out any remains. Charities and churches orchestrated relief efforts, providing food and shelter to evacuees. And the Red Cross provided medical aid and fought to control an outbreak of the norovirus. As if that wasn’t enough, some of the firefighters even prepared Thanksgiving dinner for the victims of Camp Fire.

Cooks and volunteers from across the state descended upon Chico, situated 10 miles west of Paradise. There they assembled rows of stick burners and gas-assist grills. Organizers cooked around 7,500 pounds of turkey – enough to serve between 10,000 and 15,000 attendees. José Andrés and Guy Fieri coordinated the enormous banquet. The turkeys were brined at 8pm on the eve of Thanksgiving, and the cooking commenced at 5am. Thousands of meals were served to evacuees, first responders, and volunteers with the Red Cross and Salvation Army.

Jim Irving was one of the firefighters who sacrificed his Thanksgiving to help prepare meals. He had already spent several grueling weeks battling Camp Fire. “To me this is almost like… I’d rather be here,” Irving said. “You know it’s helping other people and that’s part of what Thanksgiving’s about.”^[10]