Wood engraving from Harper’s Weekly magazine depicts on
field action during a football match between Yale and
Princeton on Thanksgiving Day, November 1876.

On November 30, 1876, Yale defeated Princeton, 2-0, in Hoboken,
New Jersey in the first collegiate football game played on
Thanksgiving. Nearly 1,000 fans attend the game, played in cold,
rainy weather. "The friends of both colleges mustered in good
force," the New York Times reports. "Several carriages containing
ladies were on the ground, and a goodly number of Alumni were
there to cheer the contestants."

The football was oval and made of leather, the Times noted,
"similar to those used in Rugby Union rules." The game
resembled rugby more than a present-day football game.

CAMILLE BOHANNON

The first Macy’s Day Parade was on November 27 in 1924. The
parade originally featured Macy’s employees and live animals
from the Central Park Zoo. Floats, instead of balloons, were the
main attraction.

The parade began in Harlem at 145th Street and ended in front
of the Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street. It was originally
called the Macy’s Christmas Parade, but was renamed the
Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in 1927.

An estimated 250,000 spectators attended the first parade.

Today,  about 3.5 million people attend.   

‘Andy the Alligator’ in the 1933 parade.

Mickey Mouse made his first debut in this 1934 parade.

The Tin Man made his debut months after the release of “The Wizard of Oz” in 1939.

A group of elephants participated in the 1954 Thanksgiving
Day Parade. 

A marching band through Times Square, 1959. 

A performance by the Rockettes, 1964.

On November 23, 1936, the first issue of the pictorial magazine
Life was published, featuring a cover photo of the Fort Peck
Dam’s spillway by Margaret Bourke-White.

Life actually had its start earlier in the 20th century as a different
kind of magazine: a weekly humor publication, not unlike today’s
The New Yorker in its use of tart cartoons, humorous pieces and
cultural reporting.

When the original Life folded during the Great Depression, the
influential American publisher Henry Luce bought the name 
and re-launched the magazine as a picture-based periodical 
on this day in 1936. By this time, Luce had already enjoyed 
great success as the publisher of Time, a weekly news
magazine.

Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 – February 28, 1967)

On November 15, 1956, Love Me Tender, featuring singer Elvis
Presley in his big-screen debut, premiered in New York City at
the Paramount Theater. Set in Texas following the American
Civil War, the film, which co-starred Richard Egan and Debra
Paget, featured Elvis as Clint Reno, the younger brother of a
Confederate soldier.

Originally titled The Reno Brothers, the movie was renamed
Love Me Tender before its release, after a song of the same
name that Reno sings during the film.