Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: A Look Back (PHOTOS)

For most people, Thanksgiving consists of turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. While the tradition of our Thanksgiving Day meal dates back to the 17th century, the tradition of the parade is a newer one, dating back to the early 1900s.

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Macy’s employees started the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, originally called the Macy’s Christmas Parade, in 1924. The employees borrowed animals from the Central Park Zoo for the parade.

It wasn’t until 1927 that the parade showcased its signature giant balloons. That year the parade featured a Felix the Cat balloon, which started the continuing tradition of the parade’s character balloons. From then on, several classic characters were repeated year after year, with Snoopy having the most recreations over the years.

N​inety-nine years of history leaves a lot of time for weather mishaps, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has had plenty. Thanksgiving 1957 was particularly chilly and rainy, and cold rainwater collected on top of the Popeye balloon's sailor's hat, eventually dumping on unsuspecting parade guests when the character made a tight turn, CNN reported.

But it was the exceptionally strong winds in the 1997 parade that caused several hospitalizations and injuries, as well as thousands of dollars in property damage during the parade. The incident led to new requirements for the balloons, with the very large, hard-to-control balloons banned in future parades and wind speed factoring into whether balloons fly during the parade.

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For nostalgia's sake, we put together a slideshow of the parade's beginnings. Click through the slideshow above to see some of the parade’s early balloons.

Senior editor Nicole Bonaccorso works as weather.com's photo editor and writes about breaking news, travel, climate and more.

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