In 1939, November had five Thursdays, which pushed Thanksgiving all the way to November 30 and left struggling Depression-era stores with only 24 shopping days until Christmas. Retail leaders asked President Franklin Roosevelt for help, and he agreed to move the holiday up a week to November 23. The country promptly lost its mind. Plymouth, Massachusetts objected, calendar makers were stuck with wrong calendars, college football schedules fell apart, and a Gallup poll found 62 percent of Americans against the change.

The Republican mayor of Atlantic City nicknamed the new date "Franksgiving," and because governors still set their own state holidays, the nation split almost perfectly in half, with Texas and Colorado simply celebrating both. The split happened again in 1940 and 1941, even after a government study showed the extra week did not boost sales. Just weeks after Pearl Harbor, Congress settled it for good by fixing Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday in November, which is exactly where it lands this year. Just in time for the holiday, this episode tells the story of the year America could not agree on which Thursday to eat turkey.

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