Nov 20, 2015

Annual Turkey Pardon

President Truman received two turkeys in December 1948 from the poultry industry and began the tradition of the president receiving turkeys from a business, rather than random folks. However, Truman did not pardon either of them. He said the birds would make for a tasty Christmas dinner.

In 1963, John F. Kennedy was presented with a turkey and remarked, "Let's keep him going." A Washington Post article about the comment was first to use the words "reprieve" and "pardon" to describe the fate of the turkey. So, JFK began the modern turkey pardon tradition.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments