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The History of the Thanksgiving Presidential Turkey Pardon

November 19 by

Turkey Pardon | Flat Rate Carpet BlogEvery year, right before Thanksgiving, the President of the United States participates in a ceremony in which he gives one lucky turkey a presidential pardon. This lucky turkey gets to live another year, but where did this tradition come from?

Ever since 1947, the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board have given a Thanksgiving gift of a turkey to the President of the United States. Other than President Kennedy, every President before 1989 ate the turkey at their Thanksgiving feast.

Although the first President in modern history to pardon a Thanksgiving turkey was President H.W. Bush, there are rumors of presidential turkey pardons that go all the way back to Abraham Lincoln pardoning his son’s pet turkey.

Pardoned turkeys do more than live another year. These famous turkeys go on to live on farms or at parks. In both 2005 and 2006 the pardoned turkeys got to go to Disneyland in California to be the honorary grand marshals in the Disneyland Thanksgiving Parade. Since 2010 all pardoned turkeys have been sent to Virginia, to live out their lives at George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate.

This Wednesday, President Barak Obama will be pardoning one lucky bird, in a tradition that’s fast become one of America’s favorite Thanksgiving traditions.

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The History of Daylight Saving Time

March 12 by

Yesterday, the second Sunday of March, residents of the United States entered Daylight Saving Time (DST). As we Spring forward, we take one hour of our morning sunlight and add it on to the end of the day.

DST was originally adopted in the US and much of Europe during the first World War. In 1916 Germany and Austria changed time during the summer as a way of conserving fuel needed to produce lighting in the evening. During the next two years the energy saving move spread like wildfire throughout Europe, England and Australia until it came to the US in 1918.

In 1919 DST was repealed because people generally woke up and went to bed much earlier than they do today and hated the new law. Some States kept the new time table, and others chose to keep the same time year
round.

During WW II the law was once again put into action, and for three years DST was in effect all year long. Between 1945 and 1966 every state was free to choose whether or not they participated in DST, until it became too confusing and in 1966 The Uniform Time Act of 1966 was put into place.

Since then various changes to the law have been made. For the most part American’s enjoy the added hour of sunlight, and only a few regions refrain from changing time.

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