A lame-duck president “pardoned” a turkey on Monday.

“You tell me there are 2,500 people here today asking for a pardon,” President Biden joked at a White House ceremony on the South Lawn. After one of the turkeys, Peach, let out a few bites, Biden said, “What did you say, Peach?” Peach is making a last minute plea here.”

He implored the turkeys to “keep calm and gobble,” then pardoned them. “Because of your temperament and commitment to being productive members of society,” the president said, “I hereby pardon Peach and Blossom.”

Biden noted that the birds would spend their days there Farmamerica Agricultural Interpretive Center in Minnesota, the highest producing turkey state.

He hinted at the history of this strange event and, unlike many previous presidents, did so accurately.

I don’t mean to be snobby, but this poultry tradition has a long and often confusing history. So let’s dispel the myths that have stuck in our mouths and that too many cling to and get to the bottom of the truth.

Even presidents got it wrong

Which president was the first to pardon a turkey? This could be a Tale of the Shaggy Turkeybut be patient with us.

To paraphrase a former president, this depends on what the definition of “pardon” is.

“This is a tradition that goes back to the presidency of Harry Truman,” said then-President George W. Bush 2008.

Uh. Kind of, but not when it comes to that pardon Turkeys.

“So, continuing a tradition started by President Truman 50 years ago, I will keep at least – excuse me – one turkey from the Thanksgiving dinner table by pardoning an Ohio turkey.” said former President Bill Clinton in 1996.

That’s definitely not true. And he repeated it the next year.

“President Truman was the first president to pardon a turkey,” he said.

Still not true. Things got so bad that the Truman Library had to step in.

“Library staff have found no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs or other contemporary records in our collections relating to Truman’s pardon of a turkey that he received as a gift in 1947 or at any other time during his presidency.” it said in a statement in 2003. “Truman sometimes implied to reporters that the turkeys he received were destined for the family dinner table.”

Truman was the first to be given a turkey by the National Turkey Federation, but not the first to be pardoned

This is where the confusion comes in. It was the Turkey lobby present Presidents with turkeys since 1947, when Truman was president.

But as the Truman Library notes, after the Depression and after World War II, the president ate his turkeys.

And that was the original intent – a gift for the President’s holiday table… and of course for Big Turkey, to attract attention and remind people to eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

There is a story that says Abraham Lincoln was the first to leave out a turkey because his son liked it, but the White House Historical Association says that story is “probably apocryphal.”

Maybe it was Lincoln, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was Kennedy?

The first documented stalling of a turkey during a turkey presentation by the Turkey Federation occurred in 1963.

Around the neck of a turkey was a sign that read: “Good food, Mr. President.”

So clearly the intention was for the president to eat it. But Kennedy said, for whatever reason, “We’ll just let this grow.”

The L.A. Times headlined this 1963 event as “Presidential pardon.”

But it certainly wasn’t official.

When was the word “pardon” first used by a president in reference to a turkey?

After Kennedy, Nixon and Carter sent their turkeys to petting zoos. But the word “pardon” was not used until 1987 by Reagan when he presented that year’s White House turkey, “Charlie.”

It was during the Iran-Contra crisis, and ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson was shouting questions about whether Reagan would pardon Oliver North and John Poindexter, who were involved in the arms swap. Reagan deflected proverb“If they had given me a different answer about Charlie and his future, I would have pardoned him.”

The Turkey pardon became an officially sanctioned White House event by George HW Bush

Senior former President Bush, Reagan’s vice president, formalized the event in 1989.

“(L)I assure you and this great turkey,” he said, “that it will not end up on anyone’s dinner table, not this guy – he is currently under a presidential pardon – and will be allowed to live out his life.” his days on a children’s farm not far from here.”

And a White House tradition was born.