The first Thanksgiving almost certainly didn’t include turkey. I know. I’ve watched an entire room of adults turn on me for saying that out loud. But the only firsthand account of the 1621 harvest feast mentions “wildfowl” and venison, and the wildfowl was most likely duck or goose. Turkey gets mentioned nowhere. And yet if I put that question in front of fifty people, at least forty-five will say turkey without hesitating. That’s the thing about Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday built on stories we’ve told so many times we forgot they were stories.
This thanksgiving trivia quiz is 75 questions deep. Some of them are easy enough that you’ll feel good about yourself. Some will make you realize you’ve been confidently wrong about something for decades. A few will genuinely start arguments at your table, and I can’t be held responsible for that. I’ve run these questions live. I know where the groans happen.
The Part Where Everyone Thinks They Know the Answer
1. In what year was the first Thanksgiving celebration held by the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony?
This is your warm-up, and most people get it. But I’ve seen confident shouts of 1620 more often than you’d think. The Mayflower landed in 1620. The feast happened after the first harvest.
Show Answer
1621. The common wrong answer is 1620, because people conflate the arrival with the celebration. They’d barely survived that first winter. There was nothing to celebrate yet.
2. Which Native American people attended the first Thanksgiving feast with the Pilgrims?
This one separates people who learned Thanksgiving from a placemat at Denny’s from people who actually paid attention in history class.
Show Answer
The Wampanoag. Many people say “the Iroquois” or just trail off. The Wampanoag, led by Massasoit, outnumbered the Pilgrims roughly two to one at that feast.
3. How many days did the first Thanksgiving celebration last?
Nobody guesses this correctly on the first try. We think of Thanksgiving as a single-day affair because that’s how we live it now.
Show Answer
Three days. It wasn’t a sit-down dinner. It was closer to a multi-day outdoor festival with games, military exercises, and feasting.
4. Which president officially declared Thanksgiving a national holiday?
I love this question because two answers feel right, and only one is.
Show Answer
Abraham Lincoln, in 1863. The common wrong answer is George Washington, who did proclaim a day of thanksgiving in 1789 but didn’t establish it as a recurring national holiday. Lincoln made it permanent, largely thanks to a relentless letter-writing campaign by Sarah Josepha Hale.
5. What ship brought the Pilgrims to America?
If anyone misses this one, the rest of the quiz is going to be a long ride for them.
Show Answer
The Mayflower.
6. Approximately how many passengers were aboard the Mayflower?
This is where it gets interesting. People either guess way too low or way too high. I’ve heard “fifty” and I’ve heard “five hundred.”
Show Answer
Approximately 102 passengers. The ship was only about 100 feet long. Imagine 102 people crammed into a vessel shorter than a basketball court for over two months.
7. What was the name of the Wampanoag interpreter who helped the Pilgrims and spoke English?
Two names will float through most people’s heads. Only one is the answer I’m looking for here.
Show Answer
Squanto (Tisquantum). Samoset was the first Native American to make contact and speak English to them, but Squanto served as the primary interpreter and taught them agricultural techniques. Both answers deserve credit, honestly, but Squanto is the standard answer.
8. Where did the Pilgrims originally intend to settle when they left England?
This one catches people. The Pilgrims didn’t set out for Massachusetts at all.
Show Answer
Virginia, near the mouth of the Hudson River. They were blown off course. The entire trajectory of American history changed because of bad weather and navigation.
The Turkey Round (Where Confidence Goes to Die)
9. What is the fleshy red piece of skin that hangs from a turkey’s neck called?
I’ve watched people pantomime this without being able to name it. It’s a beautiful thing.
Show Answer
A wattle. The piece that hangs over the beak is called a snood. People mix these up constantly.
10. What is a baby turkey called?
11. Which U.S. state raises the most turkeys?
People always guess a Southern state. Always. The real answer is aggressively Midwestern.
Show Answer
Minnesota. It produces around 40 million turkeys a year. North Carolina and Arkansas are up there too, but Minnesota runs away with it.
12. Can turkeys fly?
This is a yes-or-no question that somehow generates five-minute debates.
Show Answer
Yes. Wild turkeys can fly short distances at speeds up to 55 mph. Domesticated turkeys, the ones bred for Thanksgiving dinner, are too heavy to fly. So both sides of the argument are technically right, which is the worst possible outcome at a trivia night.
13. Approximately how many turkeys are consumed in the United States on Thanksgiving each year?
Show Answer
Around 46 million. That’s roughly one turkey for every seven Americans, all on the same Thursday.
14. What does the phrase “turkey trot” refer to in American Thanksgiving tradition?
Show Answer
A Thanksgiving Day foot race, typically a 5K. The term also refers to a ragtime dance from the early 1900s, but in the Thanksgiving context, it’s the race you sign up for to justify your second plate.
15. Benjamin Franklin famously wanted the turkey to be the national bird of the United States. True or false?
This is one of those things everyone “knows” that isn’t quite true.
Show Answer
Mostly false. Franklin never formally proposed the turkey as the national bird. In a private letter to his daughter, he criticized the choice of the bald eagle and said the turkey was “a much more respectable bird.” It was a joke, or at least half of one. But the myth stuck.
16. What amino acid in turkey is commonly blamed for making people sleepy after Thanksgiving dinner?
Show Answer
Tryptophan. But turkey doesn’t contain more tryptophan than chicken or cheese. The real culprit is eating 3,000 calories in one sitting, plus alcohol, plus sitting on a couch. But tryptophan gets all the blame.
17. What is the average weight of a Thanksgiving turkey purchased in the U.S.?
Show Answer
About 15 pounds. In the 1930s, the average was closer to 13 pounds. We’ve been breeding them bigger for decades.
Parade Questions That Only New Yorkers Think Are Easy
18. In what year did the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade take place?
People always guess too late on this one. The parade is older than most people think.
Show Answer
1924. It was originally called the Macy’s Christmas Parade and featured live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo, not balloons.
19. What were used in the Macy’s parade before the giant helium balloons were introduced?
Show Answer
Live animals from the Central Park Zoo, including elephants, camels, and bears. The balloons replaced them starting in 1927 because the animals were scaring the children. Understandably.
20. What was the first giant character balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?
This is a legitimately hard question. Most people guess Mickey Mouse, and they’re wrong.
Show Answer
Felix the Cat, in 1927. Mickey Mouse didn’t appear until 1934. Felix was the biggest cartoon star in America in the late 1920s, and people forget that completely.
21. What happens to the Macy’s parade balloons if sustained winds exceed 34 miles per hour?
Show Answer
They’re grounded and not allowed to fly. This rule was implemented after a Cat in the Hat balloon struck a lamppost in 1997 and injured a spectator. The wind threshold is enforced by the NYPD.
22. Which classic character has appeared as a balloon in the Macy’s parade more times than any other?
Show Answer
Snoopy. He’s had more balloon versions than any other character, appearing in various forms since 1968.
23. The Macy’s parade ends at which famous New York City location?
Show Answer
Macy’s Herald Square, at 34th Street. It’s a two-and-a-half-mile route that ends right at the store’s front door. It’s a parade and a marketing event, and nobody pretends otherwise.
24. What city hosts the oldest Thanksgiving Day parade in the United States?
This is the question that makes New Yorkers furious.
Show Answer
Philadelphia. The 6abc Dunkin’ Thanksgiving Day Parade (originally Gimbels) started in 1920, four years before Macy’s. Philadelphia doesn’t let New York forget this.
The Food Round (Where Everyone Has an Opinion)
25. What is the most popular Thanksgiving side dish in the United States, according to most national surveys?
This question has started more arguments at my events than any other Thanksgiving question. People take sides personally.
Show Answer
Mashed potatoes. Stuffing and cranberry sauce are always close behind, but mashed potatoes consistently top the polls. I’ve seen people get genuinely offended on behalf of green bean casserole.
26. What type of pie is the most consumed at Thanksgiving in the U.S.?
Show Answer
Pumpkin pie. This one’s straightforward, but I include it because I once had a table argue that it was pecan, and they would not let it go.
27. Cranberry sauce: which U.S. state produces the most cranberries?
People split on this one. It’s either Wisconsin or Massachusetts in everyone’s mind.
Show Answer
Wisconsin, by a wide margin. It produces about 60% of the country’s cranberries. Massachusetts gets the historical association, but Wisconsin does the actual work.
28. What year was the first canned cranberry sauce produced by Ocean Spray?
Show Answer
1941. That jiggly cylinder shape sliding out of the can is younger than your grandparents, and yet it feels like it’s been there since the beginning of time.
29. What is the difference between stuffing and dressing?
This is a regional war question. I deploy it carefully.
Show Answer
Traditionally, stuffing is cooked inside the turkey, and dressing is cooked separately in a pan. But the terms are used interchangeably depending on where you live. In the South, it’s almost always called dressing regardless of preparation. In the Northeast, it’s stuffing. There is no peace to be found here.
30. What spice gives pumpkin pie its dominant flavor?
People say pumpkin. They always say pumpkin. Pumpkin on its own tastes like almost nothing.
Show Answer
Cinnamon (along with nutmeg, ginger, and cloves, which together make up “pumpkin spice”). The pumpkin itself is mostly a vehicle. The flavor profile people associate with pumpkin pie comes almost entirely from the spices, sugar, and eggs.
31. What is a turducken?
Show Answer
A chicken stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a turkey. It was popularized by Louisiana chef Paul Prudhomme and later by football broadcaster John Madden, who turned it into a Thanksgiving television tradition.
32. Green bean casserole, a Thanksgiving staple, was invented by a test kitchen at which company?
Show Answer
Campbell’s Soup Company. Dorcas Reilly created it in 1955 as a quick, easy recipe using cream of mushroom soup. It was a marketing play that became a genuine American tradition.
33. Approximately how many calories does the average American consume on Thanksgiving Day?
Show Answer
Around 3,000 to 4,500 calories, depending on the study. The Calorie Control Council estimates about 4,500 including snacking and drinks. That’s roughly two full days’ worth of food in one sitting.
34. What is the “wishbone” of a turkey technically called?
Show Answer
The furcula. It’s a fused clavicle. The wishbone-breaking tradition dates back to the Etruscans around 700 BC, long before anyone had a Thanksgiving to celebrate.
Presidents and Politics (It Was Always Complicated)
35. Which president was the first to officially pardon a Thanksgiving turkey?
Everyone says Truman. Everyone is wrong.
Show Answer
George H.W. Bush, in 1989. The myth that Truman started it persists, but Truman actually ate the turkeys he was given. Kennedy reportedly spared one in 1963, but Bush formalized the pardon. The common wrong answer is Truman or Lincoln, and it’s wrong every time.
36. Which president moved Thanksgiving up one week, causing a national controversy?
Show Answer
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1939. He moved it to the second-to-last Thursday in November to extend the Christmas shopping season during the Depression. Critics called it “Franksgiving.” Some states refused to follow along, and for two years Americans celebrated on different days depending on where they lived.
37. In what year did Congress officially fix Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November?
Show Answer
1941. It took an act of Congress to end the Franksgiving chaos. Roosevelt signed the resolution on December 26, 1941, just weeks after Pearl Harbor.
38. Which president issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation?
Show Answer
George Washington, in 1789. He declared November 26 a day of thanksgiving. But it was a one-time thing, not an annual tradition.
39. Which president refused to declare Thanksgiving a holiday, calling it a “monarchical practice”?
This one surprises people who think of this president as a man of the people.
Show Answer
Thomas Jefferson. He believed the government shouldn’t dictate religious observances. He’s the only early president who actively refused to issue a Thanksgiving proclamation.
40. Sarah Josepha Hale, the woman who campaigned for Thanksgiving to become a national holiday, is also famous for writing what?
Show Answer
“Mary Had a Little Lamb.” She wrote that nursery rhyme in 1830 and then spent the next 36 years writing letters to presidents, lobbying for a national Thanksgiving. She’s one of the most influential Americans most people have never heard of.
Football, Black Friday, and Modern Traditions
41. Which NFL team has hosted a Thanksgiving Day game every year since 1934?
Show Answer
The Detroit Lions. They started the tradition in 1934 when owner George A. Richards used the game to boost the team’s popularity after moving from Portsmouth, Ohio. It worked.
42. Which other NFL team has a long-standing tradition of hosting Thanksgiving Day games, starting in 1966?
Show Answer
The Dallas Cowboys. They joined the tradition in 1966, and it’s been a ratings juggernaut since. The Cowboys and Lions have essentially owned the day for decades.
43. What famous sportscaster was known for awarding a turkey leg to the best player of each Thanksgiving Day game?
Show Answer
John Madden. The “turducken” and turkey leg presentations became a beloved part of his Thanksgiving broadcasts.
44. The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday. What’s the origin of the name?
Almost everyone gets this wrong. The popular explanation is that it’s when retailers go from “in the red” to “in the black.” That’s a later rebranding.
Show Answer
The term originated in Philadelphia in the 1950s and 1960s, where police used it to describe the chaotic day of massive crowds and traffic jams that descended on the city after Thanksgiving, ahead of the big Army-Navy football game. Retailers later spun it into the profit narrative, but the original meaning was purely negative.
45. What is the Saturday after Thanksgiving called for small and local businesses?
Show Answer
Small Business Saturday. It was created by American Express in 2010 as a counterpoint to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
46. When was the first Cyber Monday?
Show Answer
2005. The term was coined by the National Retail Federation. It feels like it’s been around forever, but it’s barely old enough to vote.
47. What is the busiest travel day of the Thanksgiving holiday period in the United States?
People always say the Wednesday before. And they’re usually right, but it depends on the year and the metric.
Show Answer
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is typically the busiest day for driving. The Sunday after Thanksgiving is often the busiest for air travel. Both answers are defensible, but Wednesday is the standard answer.
The Deep Cuts
48. What was the name of the Pilgrims’ original settlement in England before they left for the New World?
Trick question in a way. They didn’t leave directly from England.
Show Answer
The Pilgrims left from Leiden (Leyden), in the Netherlands, where they’d been living for about 12 years after leaving Scrooby, England. They sailed back to England first, then departed from Plymouth, England. The full journey is more complicated than most people realize.
49. What was the name of the Pilgrims’ second ship that was supposed to accompany the Mayflower but had to turn back?
Show Answer
The Speedwell. It leaked badly and was deemed unseaworthy. Some passengers transferred to the Mayflower, and the rest stayed behind. History would have looked different with two ships.
50. What percentage of the Pilgrims survived the first winter at Plymouth Colony?
This is the question that changes the mood in a room. Every time.
Show Answer
About 50%. Roughly half the colonists died from disease, exposure, and malnutrition during that first winter. The feast in autumn 1621 was a celebration of survival as much as harvest.
51. What modern U.S. state was Plymouth Colony located in?
Show Answer
Massachusetts. Specifically in what is now the town of Plymouth. You can still visit Plymouth Rock, though the rock itself is much smaller than people expect.
52. Which country celebrates a Thanksgiving holiday in October?
Show Answer
Canada. Canadian Thanksgiving falls on the second Monday of October. It has different historical roots than the American version, tied more to Martin Frobisher’s 1578 expedition and the general harvest festival tradition.
53. What is the name of the compact signed aboard the Mayflower before the Pilgrims landed?
Show Answer
The Mayflower Compact. It was essentially the first governing document of Plymouth Colony, a set of rules for self-governance signed by 41 of the male passengers.
54. In what month did the Mayflower actually arrive at Cape Cod?
Show Answer
November 1620. They sighted land on November 9 and anchored at Provincetown Harbor on November 11. Not exactly harvest season.
55. Which U.S. state was the first to officially adopt a Thanksgiving holiday?
Show Answer
New York, in 1817. It made Thanksgiving an annual state holiday decades before Lincoln made it national.
Pop Culture Thanksgiving
56. In the TV show “Friends,” what does Monica put on her head during the Thanksgiving football game?
Show Answer
A turkey. The scene where Monica dances with a turkey on her head is one of the most iconic Thanksgiving TV moments. It’s from the Season 5 episode “The One with All the Thanksgivings.”
57. What 1987 comedy film features a Thanksgiving scene where Steve Martin and John Candy share a motel room bed?
Show Answer
“Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” The entire film is a Thanksgiving travel nightmare, and it remains the best Thanksgiving movie ever made. I’ll fight on that.
58. In “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” what food does Snoopy serve at the kids’ Thanksgiving dinner?
Show Answer
Toast, popcorn, pretzel sticks, and jelly beans. It’s the saddest Thanksgiving meal in television history, and somehow it’s also charming.
59. What sitcom featured an episode called “Turkeys Away” in which turkeys were dropped from a helicopter as a promotional stunt?
If you know this one, you’re my kind of person.
Show Answer
“WKRP in Cincinnati.” The episode ends with the station manager saying, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” It’s consistently ranked among the greatest sitcom episodes of all time.
60. In the “Seinfeld” universe, what holiday does Frank Costanza invent as an alternative to Christmas, often associated with the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas season?
Show Answer
Festivus. “A Festivus for the rest of us!” While it’s technically a December 23 holiday, it’s become part of the broader Thanksgiving-season cultural conversation.
61. What 1995 movie features a Thanksgiving dinner scene where a dysfunctional family argues over a burnt turkey, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Holly Hunter?
Show Answer
“Home for the Holidays,” directed by Jodie Foster. It’s underseen and undersold as a Thanksgiving film. The cast is absurdly stacked.
62. Which animated show features an annual “Thanksgiving Special” episode involving Bob Belcher obsessing over the perfect turkey?
Show Answer
“Bob’s Burgers.” Their Thanksgiving episodes are arguably the best recurring holiday episodes on television right now. Bob’s relationship with the turkey is the emotional core of the show and I mean that sincerely.
Numbers, Records, and Things You’ll Want to Verify
63. How many kernels of corn are on an average ear of corn?
This is one of those questions where every guess feels equally wrong.
Show Answer
About 800 kernels, arranged in 16 rows. Corn was a staple of the first Thanksgiving, and the Wampanoag taught the Pilgrims how to grow it.
64. What is the record weight for the heaviest turkey ever raised?
Show Answer
86 pounds, according to Guinness World Records. That turkey, named Tyson, was raised in England in 1989. For reference, the average Thanksgiving turkey is about 15 pounds.
65. How many feathers does an adult turkey have, approximately?
Show Answer
About 3,500. I have no idea who counted, but I respect their dedication.
66. What is the fastest recorded speed of a wild turkey on foot?
Show Answer
About 25 miles per hour. They’re surprisingly fast runners, which is one of many reasons wild turkeys are nothing like the docile birds people imagine.
67. The Plymouth Pilgrims didn’t call themselves Pilgrims. What did they call themselves?
Show Answer
They called themselves “Saints” or “Separatists.” The term “Pilgrims” wasn’t commonly used to describe them until the 1800s, drawn from a passage in William Bradford’s journal.
68. What beverage did the Pilgrims likely drink at the first Thanksgiving, since the water was considered unsafe?
This one makes people uncomfortable when they think about the whole “family-friendly” narrative.
Show Answer
Beer. The Pilgrims, including children, drank beer regularly because it was considered safer than water. Their beer supply running low was actually one of the reasons they settled at Plymouth instead of continuing south.
The Ones That Earn Their Keep
69. What is the phone number for the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, and approximately how many calls does it receive each November?
Show Answer
1-800-BUTTERBALL (1-800-288-8372). They receive around 100,000 calls each November and December. The line has been running since 1981 and has handled questions ranging from how to thaw a turkey in a bathtub to whether you can cook a turkey in a clothes dryer. The answer to the second one is no.
70. What NFL Thanksgiving game holds the record for the most-watched regular season game in history?
Show Answer
The 2016 Thanksgiving Day game between the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Commanders (then Redskins) drew about 32 million viewers. Thanksgiving football consistently dominates ratings.
71. What is “Unthanksgiving Day” or the “National Day of Mourning”?
This question quiets a room. It should.
Show Answer
Since 1970, the United American Indians of New England have organized a National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It’s a protest and remembrance of the genocide of Native peoples and the theft of their lands. It happens every year at the same time families across America are sitting down to dinner.
72. What is the name of the volcanic island where a version of Thanksgiving is celebrated by descendants of the Mayflower Pilgrims and the HMS Bounty mutineers?
This is one of my favorite trivia questions of all time, period. Not just Thanksgiving trivia. All trivia.
Show Answer
Pitcairn Island. The island’s inhabitants, descended from the Bounty mutineers and Tahitian women, celebrate Thanksgiving as a cultural inheritance. It’s a tiny volcanic island in the middle of the South Pacific with fewer than 50 residents, and they observe an American holiday because of a chain of events that started in Plymouth.
73. In what year did Thanksgiving become a paid federal holiday for government employees?
Show Answer
1870. Congress declared it, along with Christmas, New Year’s Day, and the Fourth of July, as paid holidays for federal workers in Washington, D.C. It took until 1885 to extend it to all federal employees nationwide.
74. What food was almost certainly NOT served at the first Thanksgiving: potatoes, corn, pumpkin pie, or venison?
This is the question that undoes people who think they’ve been getting everything right.
Show Answer
Potatoes. They hadn’t yet made their way to New England from South America. Pumpkin pie also wasn’t served in its current form since the Pilgrims didn’t have butter, wheat flour, or an oven, but some form of pumpkin was likely present. Potatoes, though, simply weren’t there at all. Most people guess pumpkin pie and feel clever. Then they find out about the potatoes and their whole worldview shifts.
75. The Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving in 1621 was not repeated the following year, and the next recorded “thanksgiving” in Plymouth didn’t occur until 1623. What event prompted that second one?
I save this for last because it reframes the entire story. The 1621 feast was a harvest celebration. It wasn’t a religious thanksgiving. The Pilgrims understood those as two different things. When they finally held an actual thanksgiving in 1623, it wasn’t prompted by a good harvest.
Show Answer
A drought-breaking rain. The colony was suffering through a severe drought that threatened their crops. They held a day of fasting and prayer, and it rained. Governor Bradford declared a day of thanksgiving in response. The distinction matters: the 1621 event was a secular feast with the Wampanoag. The 1623 event was a solemn religious observance. We’ve been conflating the two for four hundred years, and the holiday we celebrate now is really a mash-up of both, plus a few centuries of mythology layered on top. That’s the thing about Thanksgiving. The real story is always more complicated and more interesting than the one we tell ourselves.
General knowledge is the hardest round to write because it has to be genuinely broad. I've been at it for 10 years from Boston, MA and I still approach every question like I'm writing for a room full of different people, because I am. I've written for JetPunk trivia, and I take the same care with every set I write.
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