As we sit down with family and friends this Thanksgiving Day, probably between football games, it’s worth considering the history behind the holiday.

While most Americans trace Thanksgiving to the Pilgrims and Wampanoag in November 1621 at Plymouth, Massachusetts, it may not have been the first. Some scholars credit Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Avile, who held a thanksgiving mass in 1565 at St. Augustine, Florida. Others point to December 1619, when 38 settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred, Virginia, and proclaimed “a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

For the record, El Paso, Texas, also claims the title. The city insists Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate held the first Thanksgiving there in 1598, and they’ve celebrated it every April since 1989. I’ve spent plenty of time in El Paso since about that year, and neither I nor the guy who runs our trucking terminal ever heard of it.

Going with the more accepted Plymouth Rock version, the Pilgrims had just harvested their first corn crop when Governor William Bradford organized a three-day feast, inviting the local Indian tribes in the area. The 102 Mayflower passengers, religious separatists and hopeful landowners alike, endured a brutal 66-day voyage. Half died that first winter before meeting an Abenaki tribesman…who spoke English. He introduced them to Squanto, who taught them how to plant corn, tap maple trees, fish, and avoid poisonous plants.

George Washington proclaimed a national day of thanks in 1789, but it was Abraham Lincoln—urged by writer Sarah Josepha Hale (author of Mary Had a Little Lamb)—who made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, right in the middle of the Civil War. Hale had campaigned for it for 36 years and earned the nickname “Mother of Thanksgiving.”

The original menu likely lacked dessert, most of the sugar was gone by then. They probably had waterfowl, venison, corn, and maybe wild turkey.

The National Turkey Federation (WAIT? who knew there was one?) says Americans now serve 44 million turkeys each Thanksgiving, about 704 million pounds. That’s double Christmas and Easter combined. The average bird weighs 16 pounds, or about what my son-in-law can polish off in one sitting.

For inquiring minds: cranberries probably came from the Indians, who used them as food, dye, and medicine. Odd, since cranberry sauce ranks among the least popular dishes, followed closely by green bean casserole. I’m in that camp myself, though I’ll eat a berry or two.

Here’s a less appetizing fact: the Friday after Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year for plumbers. I’ll leave the details to your imagination.

Only male turkeys gobble; females, perhaps wiser, stick to cackles and yelps. In 1953, Swanson found itself with 260 tons of leftover frozen turkeys. The solution? Package them with sides and invent the TV dinner—one of America’s least healthy culinary triumphs.

And get this: Jingle Bells was written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont—not for Christmas, but for Thanksgiving.

President George H. W. Bush started the odd tradition of pardoning a turkey in 1989, cheered on by animal-rights activists. Seems like a good reason to stop doing it.

Canada celebrates Thanksgiving, too—on the second Monday of October—to mark the Prince of Wales’s recovery from illness in 1872. Seems a stretch compared to our version, but I’ll give them credit for beating the winter rush.

According to AAA, 80 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles this week. Not all are headed for Grandma’s stuffing—many are bound for Orlando, Miami, or Fort Lauderdale.

And finally, it isn’t tryptophan that makes us sleepy—it’s the mountain of carbs we “gobble” down, spiking insulin and knocking us out. Feel free to share that fact at the table this year—right before your nap.