FOOD HISTORY TIMELINE
1956 to 1960 - Next
1956 The first completely enclosed shopping mall, Southdale Shopping Center opens in Edina, Minnesota.
1956 Elvis Presley sings 'Heartbreak Hotel' on the 'Milton Berle Show.' An estimated 25% of the American population tuned in to hear him.
1956 On the 'I Love Lucy' show, Lucy stomped grapes in Rome, and wrestled with another female grape stomper. An inspiration for future 'food wrestling' entrepreneurs. Actually, this is one of the funniest sitcom episodes ever made.
1956 Ant Farms. At a Fourth of July family picnic, Milton Levine came up with the idea for the Ant Farm. I wonder if he had dreams of fencing them in so they would not bother him at picnics?
1956 Curnonsky (Maurice Edmond Sailland) died. At the age of 84, he leaned too far out of his window and fell to his death. French writer, novelist, biographer, and gastronome. He was known as the "Prince of Gastronomes," a title he was awarded in a public referendum in 1927, and a title no one else has ever been given.
1956 Marion trailing blackberry introduced; the most important blackberry cultivar in the world.
1956 'My Friend Flicka' premiers on CBS TV. The series about a boy and his horse is set on the Goose Bar Ranch in Montana.
1956 Singer Parry Donahue of The Waitresses (a New Wave band) was born.
1956 The Soil Bank Program is authorized
1956 Bela Lugosi (Bιla Ferenc Dezso Blaskσ) died. Best known for his role as the blood drinking vampire in the 1931 film 'Dracula'
1956 Del Monte Pineapple Grapefruit Drink was introduced.
1956 Clarence Birdseye died in New York. In 1924, Clarence Birdseye, with the financial backing of Wetmore Hodges, William Gamage, Basset Jones, I.L. Rice and J.J. Barry, organized the General Seafood Corporation. The birth of the frozen food industry.
1956 Ice cubes, anyone? The largest iceberg was reported, in the South Pacific, 208 miles long by 60 miles wide.
1956 80% of U.S. households have a refrigerator, but only 8% of British households do.
1956 Budweiser Brewery introduces Busch beer.
1956 Four U.S. chefs win the Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt, Germany; Paul Laesecke, Otto Spielbachler, Paul Leuppe, and Paul Debes.
1956 The largest clam ever recorded was found in Okinawa in 1956, it weighed 750 pounds.
1956 First reference in print to the drink Bloody Mary appeared in 'Punch'
1957 Burger King introduced the Whopper burger.
1957 The Frisbee was invented. The pie tins of the Frisbee Pie Company of Connecticut were the inspiration for the creation of the Frisbee. A Wham-O employee supposedly saw drivers for the pie company showing Yale students how to throw the pie tins.
1957 Three B-52's made the first nonstop, around the world flight by jet planes, taking off from Castle Air Force Base in California. The trip took 45 hours and 19 minutes. I am curious as to what they ate while on this flight. If anyone has any information, please email me.
1957 The song 'Tequila' by the Champs was recorded.
1957 The styrofoam cooler was invented.
1957 The Banana Boat Song (Day-O) by Harry Belafonte is number one on the charts.
1957 William Cadbury, chocolatier died at age 89.
1957 Actress Kelly McGillis was born. McGillis has a restaurant in Key West, Florida called Kelly's Place.
1957 Last game of the greatest baseball team in history. On September 4, the last game is played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn as the Dodgers prepare to move to LA. On February 23 of 1960, they tear the stadium down. Days that will live in infamy! I guess you can tell I was born in Brooklyn.
1957 Velcro was patented by George de Mestral of Switzerland.
1957 Humane Slaughter Act passed to govern livestock handling procedures in meat packing plants.
1957 Better Homes & Gardens prints its first microwave-cooking article.
1957 Margarine sales exceed butter sales for the first time.
1957 General Foods Corp. introduces TANG breakfast beverage crystals.
1957 Dairy Queen Hamburgers and Hot Dogs are first added to the Dairy Queen menu at some outlets in Georgia.
1957 Craig Claiborne was named food editor of The New York Times.
1957 Idaho became the largest producer of potatoes, overtaking Maine.
1957 Poultry Inspection Act authorized compulsory Federal inspection of poultry sold in interstate commerce.
1957 Kentucky Fried Chicken begins selling chicken in buckets.
1958 The agreements establishing the European Economic Community (EEC or Common Market) went into effect.
1958 The CBS TV program 'General Electric Theater' aired an episode titled 'A Turkey for the President.' It starred Nancy Davis (Reagan) with husband Ronald Reagan, future 40th president of the U.S. (1981-1989).
1958 Ant Farms go on sale. Milton Levine had the idea at a July 4th picnic. I wonder if he had dreams of fencing them in so they would not bother him at picnics?
1958 'Sugartime' by the McGuire Sister topped the charts.
1958 'Tequila' by The Champs is #1 on the charts
1958 Shep Wooley recorded "The Purple Eater", it reaches #1 on the charts.
1958 'The Chipmunk Song' becomes the only Christmas song in U.S. in history to be Number #1 on Christmas Day.
1958 Continuous method of making jelly with fruit-juice concentrates developed, instead of using single-strength juice.
1958 Velcro was trademarked.
1958 The first parking meters are installed in England.
1958 The first potato flake manufacturing plant opened in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
1958 The Frisbee was patented. The pie tins of the Frisbee Pie Company of Connecticut were the inspiration for the creation of the Frisbee. A Wham-O employee supposedly saw drivers for the pie company showing Yale students how to throw the pie tins.
1958 A National Airlines Boeing 707 with 111 passengers flew from New York to Miami. It was the first domestic passenger jet flight. ** I am trying to locate information on what food was served on this flight. If anyone has information, please email me james@foodreference.com
1958 Friskees introduced the first dry cat food
1958 Rice-A-Roni goes on sale. Produced by Vince DeDomenico from an Armenian family recipe.
1958 Cocoa Puffs cereal is introduced by General Mills; it contains 43% sugar.
1958 Cocoa Krispies is introduced by Kellogg’s - it's 45.9% sugar.
1958 There are 4,063 drive in movie screens nationwide.
1958 Jolly Green Giant was born. He appears on TV, but he looks like a monster and scares kids. So they lighten him up a bit, added 'Ho, ho, ho' and and a catchy jingle.
1958 Sweet n' Low was introduced as an artificial sweetener (granulated saccharin, dextrose, cream of tartar and calcium silicate). It received U.S. trademark patent no. 1,000,000.
1958 Frank Carney, 18 years old, reads about the pizza fad with college students. He borrows $600 from his mother and opens the first Pizza Hut in Wichita, Kansas.
1958 McDonald's sold its 100 millionth hamburger.
1958 Jif peanut butter was introduced (creamy).
1958 Royal Crown Cola begins test marketing Diet Rite Cola, the first diet cola. It goes national in 1962.
1959 U.S. agricultural exports were about $3.53 billion a year during the 1950s (22% of total exports).
1959 The Aluminum Specialty Company of Manitowoc, Wisconsin introduced the aluminum Christmas Tree.
1959 Average commercial fertilizer use on U.S. farms during the 1950s was about 22.3 million tons per year.
1959 Danny's Coffee Shops are renamed Denny’s.
1959 In 1959 there were about 15,000 'delis' in New York City.
1959 Maxwell House inaugurates the 'Good to the last drop' ad campaign.
1959 Bic Pens are introduced in the U.S. Europe has had them since 1952.
1959 At the first Grammy Awards, 'Tequila' by the Champs won best Best Rhythm & Blues Performance for 1958.
1959 Oklahoma repeals its 51 year old Prohibition law leaving Mississippi the only 'dry' state in America.
1959 Food for Peace Program inaugurated.
1959 The heavy, fudge-like Chocolate Velvet Cake was created by pastry chef Albert Kumin of the Four Seasons restaurant.
1959 There are 32,000 supermarkets in the U.S. and account for 69 percent of all food store sales.
1959 The 7 oz. seamless, recyclable aluminum beer can is introduced by Coors of Golden, Colorado.
1959 The one billionth can of Spam was sold.
1959 Mechanical tomato harvester developed.
1959 McDonald's opens its 100th restaurant in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.
1959 New York's Four Seasons restaurant and The Brasserie open in the new Seagram Building.
1959 The day the music died. February 3, 1959. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) are killed in a plane crash near Mason City, Iowa.
1959 Rap singer 'Ice T' was born (Tracy Morrow).
1959 The Coasters song 'Charlie Brown' is banned by the BBC because it refers to 'throwin' spitballs.' The ban only lasted 2 weeks.
1959 The St. Lawrence Seaway opened. It connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. Its completion opened the heart of Americas industrial and agricultural areas to ocean going vessels for shipping.
1959 Icelandic gunboats fired on British trawlers during their 'Cod War' over fishing rights.
1959 Mary Leakey, wife of Louis Leakey, discovered a human skull in Tanganyika (Tanzania). It is about 1.8 million years old.
1959 Kitchen Debate. Then vice president Richard M. Nixon argued with Soviet Leader Nikita Khruschev while Khruschev was touring the United States. They were touring a kitchen at the time, and the discussion became known as the Kitchen Debate.
1959 Congress passes legislation authorizing the Secretary of Agriculture to run a Food Stamp program through 1962. However the Eisenhower Administration never uses the authority.
1959 The TV show 'Bonanza' premiers. The frontier adventures of the Cartwright family, father and 3 sons and Chinese cook Hop Sing, on the 'Ponderosa' ranch near Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
1959 Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev is told he cannot visit Disneyland. Krushchev was indignant. The reason given was security concerns. Can you picture Krushchev cavorting with Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse?
1959 Emeril Lagasse was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. TV cook and actor.
1959 Polish born New York businessman Reuben Mattus created a premium ice cream. He gave it the Danish sounding name, Haagan Dazs, and put a map of Scandinavia on the carton.
1959 Mike Ilitch opened the first 'Little Caesars Pizza'
1960 Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller 'Psycho' premiered on June 16. It was the first film to show a toilet flushing. (Janet Leigh's character flushed a torn up piece of paper).
1960 The population of the U.S. is now 179,323,175. Farmers are 8.3% of the labor force. There are about 3,711,000 farms, averaging about 303 acres.
1960 There are about 45 million television sets in the U.S. About 90% of homes had at least one TV set.
1960 More than 95% of U.S. corn acreage is planted with hybrid seed.
1960 Dr. Asselbergs developed the process for making instant mashed potato flakes, the basic process that is still used today.
1960 The 'I Hate to Cook Book' by Ruth Eleanor 'Peg' Bracken was published.
1960 Frozen bagels were introduced.
1960 Instant sweet potatoes developed.
1960 Four 'colored' students from the Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina sat down at the lunch counter in Woolworth's and ordered coffee. They were refused service, but made history.
1960 The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago at 116 E. Walton Street, in downtown Chicago.
1960 Agnes Arber died. Arber was a British botanist, who wrote 'Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution' (1912) and 'The Gramineae: A Study of Cereal, Bamboo and Grass' (1934).
1960 Tiros I, the first weather observation satellite was launched from Cape Kennedy.
1960 Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies were introduced for 49 cents.
1960 'How America Eats' by Clementine Paddleford was published.
1960 Georges Claude died. A French engineer, he invented the neon light, commonly used for signs.
1960 Chubby Checker's 'The Twist' was released. It reached #1 on the charts.
1960 The National Agricultural Center & Hall of Fame established.
1960 The last episode of 'The Howdy Doody Show' airs on NBC. Remember the ‘Peanut Gallery’?
1960 Dr. Irving Cooper received a wine bottle opener for Christmas. It injected carbon dioxide gas into the bottle to force the cork out. He noticed the gas was extremely cold coming out from the needle-like device. This gave him the idea to develop a brain surgery technique using liquid nitrogen to freeze tiny areas of brain cells or tumors.
1960 Ray Charles recorded 'One Mint Julep.'
1960 Chicago's last packing house closed.
1960 The Hawaiian Pineapple Company was renamed Dole Corp.
1960 The non-dairy coffee creamer, 'Coffee Rich' was introduced.
1960 Aluminum cans were first used commercially for food and beverages.
1960 The Four Seasons hotel chain was founded.
1960 Domino's Pizza was founded.
1960 Granny Smith apples were first imported from New Zealand and sold in the U.S.
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