Offbeat Blog: 10 Memorable Thanksgiving Snapshots Of U.S. Presidents

Friday, November 28, 2008

10 Memorable Thanksgiving Snapshots Of U.S. Presidents

“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 dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances 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.”
-Abraham Lincoln

On every Thanksgiving, the U.S. President pardons a turkey that is to be selected as the National Thanksgiving Turkey. This tradition roots back to the days of Honest Abe Lincoln.

The tradition supposedly started when Abe Lincoln’s son became friends with a turkey that was supposed to be dinner. Lincoln’s son convinced him to spare it.

Below are 10 famous pictures of Presidents celebrating Thanksgiving and/or pardoning a turkey.

George W. Bush (President: January 20, 2001-January 20, 2009)