Though the National Turkey Federation has been presenting an annual turkey to the president since 1947, the White House Historical Association notes that “presentation turkeys” were eventually given a different placement than on the White House’s Thanksgiving dinner table beginning in 1981, under then-President Ronald Reagan. In 1989, when George H.W. Bush was in office, the event was regularly being picketed by animal rights activists, which prompted him to quip that the turkey was “granted a Presidential pardon as of right now.”
A tradition was born.