The story behind the Thanksgiving Day Parade

The History of the Parade

It's hard to believe but when the very first Thanksgiving Day Parade was staged in 1920, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway had just been finished and construction on the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where the parade ends, had just begun.

It wouldn't be finished until 1929.

The Parade marched on through the Great Depression and World War II but it almost met its end in 1986.

Rick Williams takes a look back at the history of the day.