Today is Thanksgiving Day. One of the most traditional of American holidays, it's thought to have begun in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The holiday became national in 1863, and the fourth Thursday of the month has been the official day since 1941. In many of the nation’s 128 million or so households, people will share a special meal, typically turkey with all the traditional trimmings. American farmers raise around 230 million turkeys annually, in some 2,500 locations nationwide.

In a recent measure, Americans eat an average of 16 pounds of turkey each year, while the birds themselves have … or had … an average weight of about 30 pounds.