1873
The year Rhode Island turkey farmer Horace Vose began sending a bird, dressed and ready for the oven, to the White House for the president's Thanksgiving dinner. Over the course of four decades, the renowned "Poultry King" would select the "noblest gobbler in all that little state," which never weighed less than 30 pounds. Supplying the TOTUS for the POTUS was a big responsibility: When the fowl didn't arrive in Washington as expected in 1910, the New York Times reported, "Fears were entertained yesterday that the White House would have to go to market and buy its own turkey." The crisis was averted when the bird arrived the day before the holiday. William Howard Taft had one more thing to be grateful for that year.
36
The number of…