A turkey dinner and Thanksgiving are practically synonymous. When we think of Thanksgiving dinner we normally think of turkey, but the first Thanksgiving feast actually did not feature turkey.

It was cooked by four English women and two teen-age girls. They prepared food for about 90 American Indians and 50 colonists.

According to Josh Yearout, an archivist at Wichita State University, the food eaten that day was very different than what we eat during our Thanksgiving dinner. There was no flour for bread, no sugar, but perhaps wild honey, and no milk, cream, butter or cheese.

The menu included dried corn, pumpkins, venison, fish and possibly lobster or turkey.

Thanksgiving has been observed as a national holiday since 1863 when President Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving proclamation to be observed annually on the last Thursday of November. The only time the date was changed was in 1939 when President Franklin Roosevelt changed it to the third Thursday. Congress changed it back to the fourth Thursday in 1941.