Thanksgiving History of Pardoning the National Turkey

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Matt Cail and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm here today to tell you all about the history of Thanksgiving. Since Thanksgiving became a national holiday, there have been a number of traditions and associated events around it which have kind of popped up, cropped up over the years and decades. One of these is the pardoning of the national turkey. Now some things are known about this, other things are not. Often times of course we see on television the president pardoning the turkey. This turkey has been allowed to live out a natural life until it's natural demise on the farm, where it's happy and gets it's fill of eating and doing whatever basically it wants. It lives, it has a very very good life. But what you don't know is that that is not the only turkey in the process. Generally there are three turkeys. This began in the 1940's to which these three turkeys are presented to the president and the president picks one for pardoning. What happens to the other two? The other two are prepared for the White House Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, that is right. The other two turkeys do not make it. They are found wanting but for definitely, good eating."