MARCH 2 - Today in Food History• National Banana Cream Pie Day
· Banana Cream Pie Recipes • Egg McMuffin Day [mcdonalds.com] • Pancake Week: Mar 2-8, 2025 (Week of Shrove Tuesday - can be Feb or March) • [National Eating Disorders Awareness Week] (Feb 24-March 2, 2025)
On this day in:1787 William Bass died (born 1717). English brewer, founder of Bass Brewery in 1777 in Burton-on-Trent. 1799 The first U.S. weights and measures law was passed by Congress. Actually it did not set standards, but rather required the surveyor of each port to test and correct the instruments and weights used to calculate duties on imports. Basically each surveyor was on his own in setting the standards to be tested.
(Weights & Measures Facts) 1863 Congress authorized a track width of 4-ft 8-1/2 in. as the standard for the Union Pacific Railroad, which would become the standard width for most of the world 1865 John James McLaughlin was born (died Jan 28, 1914). Canadian chemist and pharmacist, founder of Canada Dry soft drink brand. 1887 Harry E. Soref was born. Inventor of the laminated steel padlock, founder of the Master Lock Company in 1921. The company became well known in 1928 when it shipped 147,600 padlocks to federal prohibition agents in New York for locking up speakeasies they raided. 1903 The 12 story, 416 room Martha Washington Hotel opened in New York City. It was the first hotel exclusively for women (but men could eat in the restaurant). 1904 Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) was born. Writer and cartoonist. A few of his childrens books were 'Green Eggs and Ham,' 'One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish,' 'Scrambled Eggs Super!' and 'The Butter Battle Book' 1923 Canada and the U.S. sign the 'Halibut Treaty' (Convention for the Preservation of the Halibut Fishery of the Northern Pacific Ocean) to preserve North Pacific fish stocks, providing for joint management of the Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) and a 3-month closed winter season. This was Canada's first treaty negotiated independently of Britain.
(Halibut Trivia -- Halibut Quotes -- Halibut Recipes) 1930 Actor John Cullum was born. He played the restaurateur on the TV show ‘Northern Exposure’. 1933 The classic film 'King Kong' premiered at Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy theaters in New York City. 1935 Porky Pig, Warner Bros. Loony Tunes character, made his debut in the animated short 'I Haven't Got a Hat' 1942 The Stage Door Canteen opened in New York in the basement of the 44th Street Theater. It offered servicemen free nights of dancing, entertainment, food and nonalcoholic drinks, and even opportunities to rub shoulders with celebrities. 1962 The Twilight Zone episode 'To Serve Man' premiered. It is about aliens who arrive here ‘to serve man,’ but not quite in the way we assumed. Their manual on how ‘to serve man’ turns out to be a cookbook. 1974 U.S. first class postage rates are raised to 10 cents and post cards to 8 cents.
1976 The musical 'Bubbling Brown Sugar' opened on Broadway. 1984 Ray Kroc's first McDonald's franchise restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois closed. It had opened for business on April 15, 1955. (McDonald’s Restaurant Trivia) 1989 A phone call to the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile begins a chain of events that results in an 11 day embargo of Chilian fruit. The anonymous phone call, and another one on March 9, warns that Red Flame grapes on the way to the U.S. have been injected with cyanide. Over 2 million crates of Chilean fruit is impounded and 20.000 Chilean food workers lose their jobs. Consumers in the U.S. and several other countries stop eating grapes of any kind for a month. No real evidence of contamination was found. 1995 The musical 'Smokey Joe's Cafe' opened in New York City. 2011 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the Eastern Cougar officially extinct,
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