Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody African.

This day November 26, 1939 was a few days after Thanksgiving, or maybe it was a few days

before Thanksgiving, America was a little confused, and that is because in 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had declared that

Thanksgiving would not take place on the last Thursday of the month of November

but actually one week earlier in an effort to expand the holiday shopping season and boost the wartime

economy.

America, let's say, was not having it.

We will get into the details, but the new earlier francsgiving as it came to be

known was very controversial it did last for two years until 1941 when Congress

stepped in and officially codified the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving day, but here to discuss

Thanksgiving, the perils of messing with the holidays, and lots more is as always

Nicole Hemmer of Columbia. Hello, Nicky. Happy Thanksgiving to you and our special

guest is Adam Conover, creator and host of the excellent TV show Adam Ruins

Everything and also the host of the wonderful podcast factually and all around

skeptic and good thinker about our very weird country.

Adam, thank you for joining us.

Gobble, thank you for having me.

So when Nicki and I were prepping for this, I was sort of joking a little bit about how this was

an interesting moment where Thanksgiving had gotten politicized and I made a joke about

oh no one says

happy Thanksgiving anymore and it's you know the war on Thanksgiving and so forth and I

...