April 13, 2022 - National Thomas Jefferson Day | National Scrabble Day

Welcome to April 13, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate a presidential lunch and the world’s favorite word game. Thomas Jefferson was a true renaissance man. He wrote the Declaration of Independence. During his presidency, he doubled the size of the United States via the Louisiana Purchase. He even stocked the Library of Congress with thousands of his own books. But it’s one of his lesser-known contributions to society that still helps parents everywhere navigate the madness of feeding their kids each day. You see, Jefferson is responsible for introducing macaroni and cheese to Americans. He imported the dish from France and experimented with his own version until he got his recipe just right. It took years, but mac and cheese caught on with the public and is still around to this day, becoming a go-to for kids and those of us who are kids at heart. On National Thomas Jefferson Day celebrate with a bowl of this comfort food in honor of our 3rd President. The game of Scrabble was invented during the Great Depression by an out of work architect. For anyone who grew up on Mars, Scrabble is played with two to four players who score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15 by 15 grid. Since its humble beginnings, Scrabble is now played in 121 countries in 29 different languages! It was also featured as a television game show in the 1980s. The highest scoring word ever recorded in a Scrabble tournament earned a whopping 392 points. The word was spelled C A Z I Q U E S, which is a type of oriole. On National Scrabble Day, challenge someone you know to the classic board game or play online to bring out your inner word nerdiness. I’m Anna Devere and I’m Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices