Detroit Lions NFL Football Team

 The Detroit Lions have hosted the NFL’s Thanksgiving Classic every year since 1945. Detroit was the only team to do so until the Dallas Cowboys began hosting their game in 1966. The format was then changed again in 2006, when the NFL scheduled a third Thanksgiving game that would rotate between different teams to highlight key matchups of that week. In the 71 games that the Detroit Lions have hosted on Thanksgiving Day, they currently have a record of 33 wins, 36 losses and two ties. This year's Thanksgiving opponent, the Green Bay Packers, have played on Thanksgiving Day 33 times, with 13 wins, 18 losses and two ties.

Which Actor Starred in the Ten Commandments?

 

Cecil B. DeMille produced, directed, and narrated The Ten Commandments, a 1956 American epic religious drama film. The Ten Commandments dramatizes the biblical story of Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince who becomes the deliverer of his real brethren, the enslaved Hebrews, and then leads the Exodus to Mount Sinai, where he receives the Ten Commandments from God. It is based on Dorothy Clarke Wilson's 1949 novel Prince of Egypt, J. H. Ingraham's 1859 novel Pillar of Fire, A. E. Southon's 1937 novel On Eagle's Wings Charlton Heston plays the primary role in the picture.

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1957, including Best Picture and Best Visual Effects, and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (John P. Fulton, A.S.C.). DeMille was named Best Director by the Foreign Language Press Film Critics Circle. Charlton Heston was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture in the category of Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama).

DeMille considered casting a middle-aged man in the part of Moses during the early phases of pre-production. He offered the position to William Boyd, a quinquagenarian actor and star of Hopalong Cassidy, but Boyd declined because he feared his cowboy reputation would interfere with his depiction of Moses. Charlton Heston, who had already worked with DeMille on The Greatest Show on Earth, was finally cast after impressing DeMille (at his audition) with his knowledge of ancient Egypt and his striking similarity to Michelangelo's Moses sculpture. Heston was also cast as God's voice in the form of a flaming bush, albeit his voice was toned down to a softer and lower register.

Who Is the Godmother of Thanksgiving?

 Much of the credit for President Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation should probably go to a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale. Lincoln issued a proclamation designating "a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise" in 1863, capping a 36-year campaign launched by Sarah Hale, a magazine editor who wrote the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb." For more than three decades, Hale had published numerous articles and letters advocating for a national day of Thanksgiving. Hale's September 28, 1963 letter to Lincoln is often cited as the main factor for Lincoln's Proclamation, earning her the nickname, the "Godmother other of Thanksgiving."

What Fruit is Prunes Made From?

 

Prunes are dried plums, usually from the European plum. Prunes cannot be made from all plum species or types. Prunes are the firm-fleshed fruits (plums) of Prunus domestica cultivars with a high soluble solids content that do not ferment when dried. The term "prune" is no longer used for fresh plums, save when referring to plum cultivars grown for drying.

The majority of prune cultivars are freestone cultivars (the pit is easy to remove), but the majority of plums grown for fresh consumption are clingstone varieties (the pit is more difficult to remove).

Prunes include 64 percent carbohydrates, including dietary fiber, 2 percent protein, are high in vitamin K, and have a moderate amount of B vitamins and minerals. The laxative effect associated with eating prunes is most likely due to the sorbitol concentration of dietary fiber. Sugar plums are not made from boiling plums or prunes, despite their name.

The Food and Drug Administration gave plum producers in the United States permission to call prunes "dry plums" in 2001. Some distributors ceased using the word "prune" on container labels in favor of "dry plums" due to a perception that prunes treat constipation (seen as disparaging).  

Were Forks Used at the First Thanksgiving Dinner?

 According to what traditionally is known as "The First Thanksgiving," the 1621 feast between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag at Plymouth Colony contained waterfowl, venison, ham, lobster, clams, berries, fruit, pumpkin, and squash. There is no definitive proof they ate turkey, and sweet potatoes were not yet grown in North America. The pilgrims didn't use forks; they ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers. Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts introduced the fork 10 years later, but it did not really catch on until the 18th century.

Thomas Edison Inventions

 

The first strand of electric lights was created by Thomas Edison, the developer of the first successful practical light bulb. During Christmas 1880, strands of lights were hung outside his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory, providing the first glimpse of an electrical light display to railroad travelers commuting by. Electric Christmas lights, on the other hand, would take nearly 40 years to become a tradition.

Families used candles to illuminate their Christmas trees before electric Christmas lights became popular. This was a risky technique that resulted in numerous house fires. Edison's buddy and associate Edward H. Johnson put together the first string of electric lights for a Christmas tree in 1882. He wound 80 red, white, and blue light bulbs around his Christmas tree by hand. The tree was not only illuminated by electricity, but it also rotated.

However, the rest of the world was not yet ready for electrical illumination, since many people still had reservations about it. When President Grover Cleveland requested that the White House family Christmas tree be illuminated by hundreds of colorful electric light bulbs in 1895, some credit him for encouraging the introduction of indoor electric Christmas lights.

Electric strands of lights may have been invented originally by Thomas Edison and Edward H. Johnson. Albert Sadacca, whose family owned a novelty lighting company, saw a business opportunity in selling them. Albert proposed that the company sell vividly colored strands of Christmas lights to the public when he was still a youngster in 1917. Albert and his brothers then formed the National Outfit Manufacturers Association Electric Company, which became the National Outfit Manufacturers Association Electric Company. Until the 1960s, it had a monopoly on the Christmas light market.

Brigham Young

 Brigham Young was an religious leader and politician. He was the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877. Young founded Salt Lake City and served as the first governor of the Utah Territory. Young also worked to establish the learning institutions which would later become the University of Utah and Brigham Young University. Young was a polygamist who had fifty-five wives and fathered fifty-seven children. Many of his wives were widows or elderly women for whom he merely cared or gave the protection of his name.