Thanksgiving Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What is Thanksgiving?
A: Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, some of the Caribbean islands, and Liberia.

It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of what?
A: The harvest and of the preceding year.

When is Thanksgiving celebrated in Canada?
A: On the second Monday of October.

When is it celebrated in the United States?
A: On the fourth Thursday of November.

Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a what?
A: A secular holiday.

The Thanksgiving holiday's history in North America is rooted in what?
A: English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation.

It also has aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs when?
A: Well before the late-November date on which the modern Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated.

In the English tradition, when did days of thanksgiving and special thanksgiving religious services become important?
A: During the English Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII.

Before the year 1536 there were 95 Church holidays, plus 52 Sundays, when people were required to do what?
A: Attend church and forego work and sometimes pay for expensive celebrations.

The 1536 reforms reduced the number of Church holidays to what?
A: 27, but some Puritans wished to completely eliminate all Church holidays, including Christmas and Easter.

The holidays were to be replaced by what?
A: Specially called Days of Fasting or Days of Thanksgiving, in response to events that the Puritans viewed as acts of special providence.

Unexpected disasters or threats of judgment from on high called for what?
A: Days of Fasting.

Special blessings, viewed as coming from God, called for what?
A: Days of Thanksgiving.

Days of Fasting were called on account of “what”, in 1611?
A: Drought.

In 1613 days of fasting were called on for what?
A: Floods in 1613.

Days of Thanksgiving were called following what military victory in 1588?
A: Over the Spanish Armada.

Days of Thanksgiving were called for following the deliverance of whom?
A: Queen Anne in 1705.

An unusual annual Day of Thanksgiving began in 1606 following the failure of what?
A: The Gunpowder Plot in 1605?

In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is traced to a sparsely documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts, and also to a what?
A: Awell recorded 1619 event in Virginia.

The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by what?
A: A good harvest.

Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of “what”, with them to New England?
A: Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving.

Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as what?
A: The "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.

According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching what?
A: The annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden.

Later in Massachusetts, religious thanksgiving services were declared by whom?
A: Civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planned the colony's thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623.

The practice of holding an annual harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until when?
A: The late 1660s.

Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until when?
A: 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution.

During the revolutionary period what affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations?
A: Political influences.

As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first what?
A: Nationwide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.

The earlier Thanksgiving celebrations in Canada has often been attributed to what?
A: The earlier onset of winter in the North, thus ending the harvest season earlier.

Thanksgiving in Canada did not have a fixed date until when?
A: The late 19th century.

When did the first official Canadian Thanksgiving occur?
A: On April 15, 1872, when the nation was celebrating the Prince of Wales' recovery from a serious illness.

By the end of the 19th century, Thanksgiving Day was normally celebrated on what date?
A: November 6.

To prevent Armistice day from clashing with Thanksgiving day, in 1957, the Canadian Parliament proclaimed what?
A: Thanksgiving to be observed on its present date on the second Monday of October.

From the time of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln, the date Thanksgiving was observed did what?
A: Varied from state to state.

The final Thursday in November had become the customary date where?
A: In most U.S. states by the beginning of the 19th century.

Modern Thanksgiving was first officially called for in all states in 1863 by what?
A: A presidential proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.

Because of the ongoing Civil War, a nationwide Thanksgiving date was not realized until when?
A: Reconstruction was completed in the 1870s.

On December 26, 1941, what did President Franklin D. Roosevelt sign?
A: A joint resolution of Congress changing the national Thanksgiving Day from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday.

In the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island, when is Thanksgiving celebrated?
A: On the last Wednesday of November.

This means the Norfolk Island observance is the day before or six days after what?
A: The United States' observance.

The holiday was brought to the island by whom?
A: Visiting American whaling ships.

What kind of pie is commonly served on and around Thanksgiving in North America?
A: Pumpkin.

Thanksgiving is a statutory holiday in all provinces in Canada, except where?
A: Except for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

In the West African country of Liberia, which began in 1820 with the colonization of freed black slaves (Americo-Liberians) from the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated when?
A: On the first Thursday of November.

During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II, both the Americans and Filipinos celebrated Thanksgiving how?
A: In secret.

After Japanese withdrawal in 1945, the tradition continued until when?
A: 1965.

It was revived by President Ferdinand Marcos, but on every September 21, when what was imposed in the country?
A: Martial law.

After Marcos' ouster in 1986, the tradition was what?
A: No longer continued.

Thanksgiving, currently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November by federal legislation in 1941, has been an annual tradition in the United States by what?
A: By presidential proclamation since 1863 and by state legislation since the Founding Fathers of the United States.

What Americans call the "Holiday Season" generally begins with what?
A: Thanksgiving.

In Reform Judaism, there is no hindrance to celebrating Thanksgiving, since it is regarded as a what?
A: A secular celebration rather than religious or gentile

In Orthodox Jewry as well, many Rabbis do what?
A: Permit or even encourage Thanksgiving celebration.