Thousands of people from across the United States volunteer for a very exclusive holiday experience: decorating the White House for Christmas. Of all of those applicants, only 300 are chosen. The volunteers work during Thanksgiving week, although they do have Thanksgiving Day off. In all, 4,572 meters of ribbon, 142,000 lights, 34,000 ornaments, 22,000 bells, […]
Painting of George Washington with his family, wife Martha, and her grandchildren, by artist Edward Savage. In September 1789, members of America’s first Congress approached the nation’s first president, George Washington, and asked him to call for a national Thanksgiving. That seemingly benign request ignited a furor in Congress over presidential powers and states’ rights. […]
Every year, on the fourth Thursday in November, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a commemoration of the 1621 harvest feast when the colonists, who came from England, shared a friendly meal with the land’s Indigenous people. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, site of the first Thanksgiving, historians and others try to separate fact from fiction surrounding the legend […]
West Virginia (41%), Louisiana (40.1%) and Oklahoma (40%) are the states with the fattest populations in the nation, laying claim to the highest proportion of adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 40% or greater, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “The latest data from CDC is looking grim,” says Jamie […]