Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About Thanksgiving

While you're preparing, eating or sleeping off your Thanksgiving meal, ponder these bizarre Thanksgiving facts

The First TV Dinner Was Thanksgiving Leftovers

Thanksgiving spawned the TV dinner

Envision / Corbis

In 1953, someone at Swanson severely overestimated the amount of turkey Americans would consume that Thanksgiving. With 260 tons of frozen birds to get rid of, a company salesman named Gerry Thomas ordered 5,000 aluminum trays, recruited an assembly line of women armed with spatulas and ice-cream scoops and began creating mini-feasts of turkey, corn-bread dressing, peas and sweet potatoes — creating the first-ever TV dinner. Thomas later said he got the idea from neatly packaged airplane food.

See the Top 10 Things TIME Is Thankful For This Year.