If you have any interest in investing, you’ve probably heard of the efficient market hypothesis. It’s the theory that stocks are always priced as they should be at any given moment, and therefore it’s futile to try to achieve better than average returns by buying at discounts and selling when prices are high.

It won the Nobel Prize for Economics. And many economists and stock market experts believe it. But it’s not true.

Bill Bonner explains…

True Confessions

By Bill Bonner 

Let me begin with a confession. Actually, it is a confession in two parts… because I have a lot to confess.

First, I have been publishing investment advice since 1980. But I only became interested in investing itself, not economics, when I became serious about my children’s and grandchildren’s money.

It’s one thing to make money in a business or profession. It is quite another thing to protect your fortune by investing it properly.

Investing is not economics. Economics is the study of how people work together to build wealth… what kind of conditions help them… what kind of circumstances and policies hinder them… and why some people prosper and others don’t.

The study of economics is endlessly fascinating, because people are fascinating… And the collective action of people – the great things they undertake together – is particularly entertaining.

But you want to keep your distance from it. Because large-scale, centrally planned, collective action is almost always counterproductive and frequently disastrous.

Since we are so badly equipped to deal with modern public policy issues, we tend to make a mess of them. We can understand small-scale issues in a small community. We know what things are worth. We have a pretty good idea, in a small group, of how to work together.

But get people in a big group… of millions… and confront them with healthcare, government debt, or war… and ignorance multiplies by the square of the number of people involved. The result is almost always a full-blown disaster.

I Was Wrong… 

But I haven’t told you the second part of my confession, have I? Part of the reason why I had no interest in investing for the first 60 years of my life was because I believed it was largely a waste of time. I was wrong about that…

I thought it was a waste of time because I first learned about investing in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) was popular. And though I was skeptical of it, I accepted it as mostly true. Not completely true. And not provably true. But logically and theoretically, it made sense to me.

The gist of the EMH is that the stock market reflects all of the available facts and opinions at any given time. It then aggregates that information and comes up with a price.

It’s not necessarily a perfect price, since it is often based on things that turn out to be unreasonable, unimportant, or untrue. But it’s the best you can do. And if you’re able to beat the market – that is, if you are able to come up with a better price – it’s probably luck.

I thought that view was correct. And I still think it’s more true than false… and worth believing, even if it’s not true.

Investors who think they can’t beat the market, in other words, are less likely to use their primitive, tribal brains trying to do so. They usually come out ahead.

A Winning Formula

You’ve probably seen the studies. There are many of them. And they all show that the typical investor would be better off not trying to beat the market.

By trying to pick the best stocks… and timing trades in and out of the market in an attempt to do better than the market itself, the typical investor handicaps himself – with performance that’s not even one-fifth as good as the market itself.

The EMH guys look at this and say: “See… We were right; you can’t beat the market.”

But I know now that the EMH is less correct than I thought. And we proved it ourselves…

Two of the investment letters we publish in the US more than doubled the performance of the S&P 500 over a 10-year period.

Could it be luck? Well, there may be some luck involved. But it seems unlikely for lightning to strike twice in such a small place… and for both of the analysts who beat the market to be using a similar approach of value investing – the same approach used by a certain well-known gentleman from Omaha, Nebraska.

According to Bloomberg, Warren Buffett’s rate of return consistently beats the market over the long term. Pure luck? Not likely…

Profiting From Errors 

Time, patience, energy, hard work, and discipline – in almost every aspect of life, these qualities pay off. I believe they pay off in the investing world, too. That is, it makes sense to invest the time and effort to try to discover what stocks are really worth.

And if you work at it long and hard enough, I think you can beat the market…

Let me explain why this is so.

In a nutshell, it’s because most investors are not doing their homework. They’re using their tribal brains to try to beat the stock market. This leads them to make serious errors of judgment as to the value of companies.

The prudent investor, with a sharp pencil and a sharp mind, profits from these errors by buying, or selling, the mispriced equities.

Investing is primarily a rational, logical attempt to determine the present value of a future stream of income. I’m not talking about speculating – where you guess about what is going up or down. I’m talking about serious investing, as it was taught by Graham and Dodd… and practiced by Warren Buffett and many others.

If every investor did it, stocks would be more or less properly priced all the time… and it would be very, very hard to beat the market.

But most investors don’t do it. Most investors use their small-scale, small-group brains. They buy and sell investments based on what someone told them… or rumors… or what they read in the papers… or half-baked ideas of all sorts. They root for stocks like they root for a football team.

Seeking Alpha 

A friend of mine told me that he once knew the top of the market was near because his mother asked him if she should try to get in on a new IPO. She’d read about it in the paper and it sounded exciting to her.

The last time his mother wanted to get into the stock market was in 1999, when she wanted to buy dot-com stocks.

It is only because most investors are so unserious that there are still some good opportunities available to more serious investors.

Another way to look at it is this: The system also functions as a moral system. That is, virtue is rewarded. Vice is punished.

What’s virtue? Hard work, patience, and self-discipline.

What’s vice? Greed, vanity, the need for immediate gratification. And laziness.

It just makes sense that, over time, the hardworking, patient, disciplined investor – calmly calculating what stocks are really worth – will do better than the great mass of unserious speculators and trend-followers.

That’s how you get alpha. You just do a better calculation than most people. You don’t have to read the paper. You don’t have to watch TV. You just do the numbers.

And yes, there is always some guesswork involved. And some judgment. You should get to know the business model. And the people running the business. And the product. Those are qualitative judgments.

You’ll be right sometimes and wrong sometimes. But – at the margin – you’ll be making better stock selections than the typical investor. And, with a little luck, you’ll get a better result.

Betting on Beta 

And now, let’s go to a better way you can beat the market: Beta.

It’s tough to beat the market chasing alpha… and most who try fail. That’s why we pursue opportunities to make above-average returns when the markets move to inefficient extremes.

This is really where I focus my attention, because I don’t have the patience for stock analysis. You can get beta by simply getting out of the stock market when it is at a historic high… and getting back in when it is at a historic low. This is very broad-brush timing. But it works.

Taken together, stocks are almost never really worth a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of greater than 20. The only exception might be when you have a fast-growing economy. Then you can expect the stream of income to increase.

But if the market is trading at more than 20 times earnings, there is likely more downside ahead than upside.

The P/E ratio for the stock market is a very rough measure. Earnings can be defined in a number of ways. Wall Street prefers anticipated earnings rather than reported earnings.

And reported earnings themselves are subject to quite a bit of manipulation. When interest rates are artificially low, for example, earnings will be flattered. And companies often report “pro forma” earnings – in which they have cooked the books – rather than the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) earnings the IRS requires.

When you do “alpha” analysis, you have to get into the books and root around until you understand what is really going on.

Beta analysis is different; you’re looking at the big picture. For example, you can look at the whole capital value of the stock market compared to GDP.

This is the way Warren Buffett prefers to do it. In an interview with Fortune magazine back in 2001, he said that looking at total market capitalization relative to GDP is “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment.” This approach eliminates the problem of the manipulation of earnings. It’s the way I prefer, too.

You can also tell when a market is too high by looking at what Lord Keynes called “animal spirits.” This is a great expression because it goes to the heart of the way most people actually do invest – as primitive animals… moved more by greed and fear than by any rational calculation.

When the animal spirits run wild, markets – bonds, US stocks, contemporary art, real estate – head toward bubble territory. That’s when you should sell out of these things rather than try to pick the absolute top.

That’s market timing… It usually doesn’t work. But it can work, rarely, when markets are at the extremes.

3 Facts, 3 Numbers, 3 Thoughts 

THE FACTS

* If you were floating around in outer space without a spacesuit, would you boil to death or freeze to death? If you guessed “boil,” you’re right. The lower the atmospheric pressure, the lower the boiling point of fluids, and space has zero pressure. So without a spacesuit, all the liquids in your body (i.e., blood, water, eye gelatin) would quickly come to a boil and you’d die from ebullism (the formation of gas bubbles in your system) or hypoxia (the lack of oxygen to your tissues) in about a minute.

* What is the single most important factor in maintaining health and longevity? Diet? Exercise? Genetics? According to a recent study, the answer is… wealth! An Oxford Academic study of 25,000 people in the US and England on “socioeconomic impacts on health/longevity” found that for both men and women, an individual’s level of wealth was the most important factor in living a long, disability-free life. This finding is consistent with many previous studies. In summary, the researchers stated that “higher wealth gives access to better housing, healthier life styles, as well as better health services.”

Another more plausible explanation: Smart decisions, good habits, and the ability to defer gratification makes you both wealthier and also healthier.

* The WHO has finally agreed with me: Large-scale lockdowns as a way to fight a pandemic like COVID-19 may be useful to keep hospitals from being overrun, but they have serious consequences. In a recent release, they admitted that lockdowns can have “a profound negative impact on individuals, communities, and societies by bringing social and economic life to a near stop.”

 THE NUMBERS

* 395%  –  the increase in Bitcoin’s value in the past year, according to data from MarketWatch. In January, BTC’s value was $8,000. It steadily increased through 2020 to its current value of just below $40,000.

* 0.7% – the chance of contracting COVID-19 from someone in your home if they are asymptomatic, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. This is 25 times less than the already small chance of contracting it from a household member that does have symptoms (18%).

* 16 – the number of official languages in Zimbabwe (a Guinness World Record). They include Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, and Xhosa.

 THE THOUGHTS 

* “If you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it’s an outstanding landing.” – Chuck Yeager

* “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” – Henry Ford

* “The most relentless force in the universe is entropy. And that is why, to achieve anything in life, one must continually create order.” – Michael Masterson

I had a good laugh watching this video of Ben Shapiro’s reaction to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) politically correct prayer at the opening of the 1st session of the 117th Congress on Sunday.

In case you missed it, Cleaver (who is an ordained minister) ended the prayer by saying, “Amen. And A-women.”

Cleaver was making a playful reference to Nancy Pelosi and James McGovern’s proposal of a new rules package regarding the use of “gender-inclusive language” in the House. But Shapiro took him seriously and called it the single stupidest thing he’d ever heard. He explained that the word “amen” is derived from Hebrew via Greek and Latin, and its meaning has nothing to do with men. What he did not explain is that the words “man” and “men” are derived from Old English, have their roots in German, and meant, even back then, “person” and “people.”

The war on words has had a long history of incredibly stupid causes – every bit as stupid as a-woman. That’s because the war on words is a political war, a war for power. And if you are a politician ,you must abide by the golden rule of politics: The ends justify the means.

Number Two Son made fun of my laughter, saying, “Boy, you Conservatives are like snowflakes when it comes to language.”

I said, “As you know from reading your George Orwell, words matter. Words matter because words influence thought. And thought influences political ideas. And political ideas are the keys to power.”

3 Facts, 3 Numbers, 3 Thoughts 

THE FACTS 

* The song typically sung on New Year’s Eve/Day, Auld Lang Syne, was written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns and published in 1796. The literal translation of the Scottish Gaelic title is “old long since,” meaning “times gone by” or “for old times’ sake.”

* Five months into WWI, soldiers from opposing sides on the Western Front took a break from fighting to celebrate the holiday together. The British and German soldiers mingled, exchanged gifts, swapped prisoners, held joint burials, and even played football. Hostilities resumed a few hours later, but the remarkable event, known as the Christmas Truce of 1914, has become a symbol of the potential for peace on earth.

* According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, more vehicles were stolen on New Year’s Day than on any other holiday in 2018 and 2019.

THE NUMBERS 

* 21 million ‒ the number of guns purchased in 2020, according to FBI background check data. This was a 73% increase from 2019.

* 338 ‒ the number of days between the date the Chinese media reported the first death from COVID-19 and the date an effective vaccine was first administered to the public in the US (December 14).

* 864 ‒ the number of civilians fatally shot by police in 2020, according to the most recent data from Statista. Of the 864, 370 were White, 192 were Black, 128 were Hispanic, and the rest were classified as “Other” or “Unknown.”

THE THOUGHTS 

* “What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven’t even happened yet.” ‒ Anne Frank

* “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” ‒ Charles Dickens

* “There is no habit more conducive to happiness than an engaging smile.” ‒ Michael Masterson

3 Facts, 3 Numbers, 3 Thoughts 

THE FACTS 

* Have you heard that the stress of the holidays causes suicide rates to surge during Christmastime? It’s not true. According to years of CDC data, suicides are usually at their lowest levels in December.

* The story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created as a marketing gimmick in 1939 by Robert May, a copywriter working for the department store Montgomery Ward. Before deciding on Rudolph for the character’s name, he considered Reginald, Rodney, Romeo, and Rollo.

* Modern marketing is also behind the familiar image of Santa Claus with a big belly, white beard, and rosy cheeks. In 1931, illustrator Haddon Sundblom was commissioned to produce a series of “Santa” ads for Coca-Cola’s  “Thirst Knows No Season” campaign. Painting while looking into a mirror, he used himself as his model.

THE NUMBERS 

* 200 million ‒ the budget for the most expensive holiday movie ever made: Disney’s 2009 animated version of A Christmas Carol.

* 3.6 to 5.2 ‒ as a percentage, the increase in holiday sales that the National Retail Federation expects to see this year over last year. In 2019, consumers spent $729 billion. This year, the NRF predicts Christmas sales will range between $755 billion and $767 billion.

* 50 million ‒ the number of copies of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” that have been sold worldwide. According to The Guinness Book of World Records, that makes it not only the best-selling holiday single, but the best-selling single of all time.

THE THOUGHTS 

* “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” ‒ Edith Wharton

* “After 45 years of research and study, the best advice I can give to people is to be a little kinder to each other.” ‒ Aldous Huxley

* “We lose what we keep. We keep what we give away.” ‒ Michael Masterson

3 Facts, 3 Numbers, 3 Thoughts 

THE FACTS  

* New Mexico is testing a unique way to encourage drivers to slow down: A stretch of Route 66 – the “Musical Highway” – contains rumble strips that play “America the Beautiful” when a car passes over them at the legal limit of 45 mph.

  * A new CDC study (published in the Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases) revealed that in December of last year, about 2% of all blood donated on the West Coast contained COVID-19 antibodies. This suggests the virus had found its way to the US before China alerted the world, and a month before the first case was identified in the US.

* Koala fingerprints are so similar to human fingerprints that they could easily be confused. “Although it’s extremely unlikely that koala prints would be found at the scene of a crime, police should at least be aware of the possibility,” says Maciej Henneberg, a biological anthropologist and forensic scientist at the University of Adelaide in Australia. At press time, Amaru did not know whether Professor Henneberg was joking.

THE NUMBERS 

* 35 – the number of dollars paid to graphic design student Carolyn Davidson in 1971 to design Nike’s “Swoosh” logo – a symbol of what has become the most valuable apparel brand in the world. (According to The Motley Fool, the brand is worth $34.8 billion.)

* 65 – the percent of global Bitcoin mining power that is located in China. Crypto mining is the process by which specialized computers are used to support, encode, and protect digital currency transactions. It is also the only way to acquire cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin) without putting any money down. China’s domination of the Bitcoin market stands to further their push to become the world’s dominant economic power by backing their Yuan with gold and Bitcoin, potentially replacing the dollar in the future.

* 3.75 billion – the number of years it will take for the Andromeda galaxy to collide with our own. According to NASA, the Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way at a rate of 68 miles per second.

THE THOUGHTS 

* “The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

* “To thrive in life you need three bones. A wishbone. A backbone. And a funny bone.” – Reba McEntire

* “Our culture is fast becoming one that rewards failure rather than success, luck rather than skill, weakness rather than strength, neediness rather than deservedness, and arrogance rather than humility.” – Michael Masterson

3 Facts, 3 Numbers, 3 Thoughts 

THE FACTS 

* In Thailand, texters use 555 the way we use LOL. The number 5 is pronounced “ha” – which makes 555 “hahaha.”

* When an actor is in character, his brain patterns change. A study by Canada’s McMaster University had actors connected to brain-scanning equipment answer questions as themselves and as the characters they were currently playing. The results showed a significant difference depending on who was answering the question.

* A pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet. It’s commonly used to test equipment and to develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and typing. The most famous pangram: “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.” Another one: “The five boxing wizards jump quickly.” And another one: “Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.”

THE NUMBERS 

* 2,107 – the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League. This was not only a 12% increase from the year before, but the highest number since the ADL began tracking the incidents in 1979.

* 96% – the amount of value (compared to gold) that the US dollar has lost since the Federal Reserve took over the US banking system in 1913.

* 6.55 trillion – the number of dollars spent by the government from October 2019 to September 30 of this year. Only half of that was offset by revenue, leaving us with a deficit of $3.13 trillion.

THE THOUGHTS 

* “Reading can teach you the best of what others already know. Reflection can teach you the best of what only you can know.” – James Clear

* “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” – Socrates

* “The end result of long and difficult practice is the appearance of natural ease.” – Michael Masterson

What Favorite Movies Can Tell You About Other People 

When the lights came on I noticed that my partner and his wife were seated just two rows behind us. They were both laughing.

“So, you liked it?” I asked.

“No!” he shouted, still laughing. “We hated it!”

The laughing didn’t make sense to me, but the fact that we had polar opposite reactions to the movie did.

I’ve often said that one of the primary but unrecognized purposes of the arts is to allow people to sort themselves into affinity groups that are not apparent from, say, a casual conversation. So I was greatly interested in a fascinating essay in Taki’s Magazine by its residential movie critic, Steve Sailer.

In “Are We What We Watch?” Sailer discusses a study that surveyed Facebook users and cross-referenced their responses with the movie preferences listed on their Facebook profiles. The researchers then categorized the information to assemble a personality profile for each participant based on the OCEAN model – an acronym for Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

The study is surprisingly deep. Sailer looks at how a preference for certain movies can denote chauvinism or even the average age/gender of a movie’s fanbase. He goes on to explain how these attributes are calculated (there’s a lot more calculation involved than you’d think) and how an overall personality profile is constructed. You might even find yourself thinking “that makes sense” while learning, for example, that sports movies rank high in extraversion while Winona Ryder movies rank high in neuroticism.

The research is fascinating, and Sailer’s analysis is very insightful (given his movie knowledge). I encourage anyone with even a passing interest in movies and/or psychology to check out his article HERE.

3 Facts, 3 Numbers, 3 Thoughts 

THE FACTS 

* To look up at stars in the night sky is to look back in time. Space is incredibly vast and stars are very far away – which means that it takes a long time for their light to reach us. It’s very likely that many of the stars you’re looking at burned out millions of years ago. If you were to look at Earth from the nearest planetary system (Alpha Centauri), which sits just over 4 light years away, you would be watching the last election and mourning the death of the Starman himself, David Bowie.

* The oil drained from a car during the average oil change – a little over a gallon – is enough to pollute a million gallons of drinking water.

* If dogs used iPhones, they’d unlock them with their noses. Every dog has a unique nose print, just as every person has unique fingerprints. The Canadian Kennel Club has kept a dog nose print database since 1938. And Megvii, a Chinese technology company, recently developed a digital dog nose print identification system that could help find lost dogs (and finally put an end to all those unsolved canine-led bank robberies).

THE NUMBERS 

* 51 million – the number of dollars that Netflix offered to buy Blockbuster in 2000. In 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. In 2020, Netflix was worth $196 billion.

* 55 million – the number of dollars that lesser-known Apple co-founder Ronald Wayne’s share would be worth today if he hadn’t sold his 10% stake in the company for $800 two weeks after its founding in 1976.

*183 million – the record-setting number of albums by the Beatles that have been sold in the US alone. Runners-up are Garth Brooks with 156 million, followed closely by Elvis Presley with 146.5 million. Before being signed by EMI in 1962, the Beatles had been turned down by at least 4 recording companies, including Decca. “Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein,” the Decca exec famously told the Beatles’ manager.

THE THOUGHTS 

* “When you have a hole in your soul, you will let others fill it with whatever extra baggage they want to get rid of.” – Michael Masterson

* “If you live for having it all, what you have is never enough.” – Vicki Robin

* “What consumerism really is, at its worst, is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.” – Jeff Bezos

“An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.” – Irv Kupcinet

What You Probably Didn’t Know About Thanksgiving

Some interesting things to ponder while enjoying your leftovers…

Backflow Friday

You know that Black Friday is a particularly hectic day for retail workers, but you may not know about another heavily affected industry – plumbing. According to Roto-Rooter, the Friday after Thanksgiving is their busiest day of the year. They attribute this to two things: (1) mishandled grease that finds its way into drains and garbage disposals and causes clogs, and (2) large gatherings of people that lead to bathroom overuse that stresses the system.

Same Old, Same Old… Only Different

Whether it’s for actual viewing or pleasant background noise, about 50 million Americans tune in to the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – an extravaganza that is estimated to cost between $11 million and $13 million each year. Another 3.5 million people usually brave the New York cold to watch it in person – some arriving as early as 6 am to get a good spot along the parade route, But this year, that’s not what happened. The only way to watch the parade was on TV. Yes, it had balloons and floats and celebrities and musical/theatrical performances, but (to avoid drawing crowds) there was no “parade route.” The action was centered around the Macy’s store at Herald Square, and much of it was pre-filmed.

The Great Balloon Massacre

Speaking of the Macy’s parade…

Originally, there was no limit to the size of the balloons in the parade – and they grew and grew. Strict regulations were put in place after strong winds damaged or demolished about 20 of the balloons in the 1997 event. The Pink Panther (one of the balloons that was subsequently banned from making future appearances) kept knocking over its handlers and had to be stabbed by the police to bring it down. Barney the Dinosaur flattened a tree, went out of control at 51st Street, and had to be stomped to death. And the Cat in The Hat – in what has been described as the worst accident in parade history – broke into the crowd, injuring 4 people, including one who was in a coma for a month.

Dutch Courage?

The commonly spouted Thanksgiving  “story” is that the pilgrims fled England to escape religious persecution. The truth is, they embarked on their journey from the highly tolerant country of Holland, where they had been living free from religious persecution (and the Church of England). Their mission was to remove their progeny from the materialism of Dutch culture and establish an ideal Christian commonwealth.

No Harm, [Probably] No Fowl

Another common narrative is that the pilgrims ended up oppressing and destroying the indigenous people whose settlement they stole upon arrival in 1621. In reality, the pilgrims came upon a nearly empty settlement that had already been destroyed by disease. One of the settlement’s survivors, Tisquantum (Squanto), would ultimately help the settlers cultivate crops and negotiate trades with the local Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Pilgrim governor William Bradford would even go on to call Squanto a “special instrument sent of God.” Their “Thanksgiving” was a three-day event (inspired by the Biblical holiday of Sukkot) celebrated by the settlers and Wampanoag, one that historians believe likely didn’t have turkey on the menu.

The First First Thanksgiving

Speaking of the first Thanksgiving…

Some historians tell us that the first Thanksgiving actually took place in Florida more than 50 years before the pilgrims got here. It happened on September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine – the day the Spanish settlers that founded the city came onshore, celebrated with a Thanksgiving Mass, and shared a meal with members of the local Seloy tribe. The food likely consisted of provisions that the settlers had brought with them on their ship (salted pork, garbanzo beans, hard biscuits, and wine), along with whatever the Seloy may have contributed (venison, tortoise, squash, fish… and maybe turkey).

Holy-Day? No Way!

On October 3, 1789, George Washington signed a proclamation designating Thursday, November 26 as a national day of thanks. But the proclamation was good only for that year. John Adams and James Madison, too, signed one-year-only proclamations. (Thomas Jefferson notably refused to acknowledge the day because he believed the religious connotations to be a direct violation of the First Amendment.) From then on, it was left up to the individual states. It wasn’t until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be “a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise,” that it officially become an annual federal holiday.

The So-Called “Mother of Thanksgiving”

So who do we have to thank for Lincoln’s decision to make Thanksgiving a national holiday? Sarah Hale gets the credit, as she spent almost 40 years campaigning for it until she finally won over the president. As part of her campaign, Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, promoted the idea to her readers by publishing Thanksgiving-themed stories and poems and recipes for such things as roast turkey and pumpkin pie. (By the way, she is also credited with writing the poem that became the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”)

Our (Almost) National Bird

Following a congressional hearing in 1782, the Bald Eagle was selected as the national bird and symbol of the United States. But if Benjamin Franklin had his way, it would have been the turkey. Franklin admired the turkey’s territorial tenacity and had contempt for the eagle’s tendency to steal food from other animals. As he said in a letter to his daughter, “I wish the Bad Eagle had not been chosen…. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.”

It’s Not Just the Turkey That’s Stuffed

 Conking out on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner is almost a part of the tradition itself. We blame this so-called “turkey coma” on the mistaken belief that turkey is especially high in tryptophan, a sleep-inducing amino acid. The truth is, there just isn’t enough tryptophan in turkey to make you drowsy. (In fact, there’s more in chicken.) Chances are, you couldn’t keep your eyes open after dinner simply because you ate far too much of everything.

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