Ray Kroc opened his first franchised McDonald’s on this day in 1955. The original concept of “fast food” was started by Richard and Maurice McDonald seven years previously, with the kitchen in their restaurant being arranged like an assembly-line and serving only hanburgers, cheeseburgers, fries, apple pie, soda pop, and milkshakes. They later expanded to 7 more locations. Ray Kroc (a restaurant-supply salesman) become interested when he noticed that the brothers were using 8 multi-mixer milkshake machines at just one location. Impressed with what he saw during a visit, he quickly acquired the rights to set up McDonald’s restaurants in most of the country. It only took 4 years for there to be more than a 100 different locations, with 1,000 restaurants by 1968 and now over 31,000 in 119 different countries. Click here for an early TV commercial.
Wiki‘s earliest event for this date is “1071 – Bari, the last Byzantine possession in southern Italy, is surrendered to Robert Guiscard” and their most recent is “2010 – Volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland leads to the closure of airspace over most of Europe.”
A few other things that happened include:
1892 – The General Electric Company is formed.
1924 – McNally’s Road Atlas debuts.
1927 – The most destructive river flood in U.S. history begins on the Mississippi.
1947 – Jackie Robinson plays in his first Major League Baseball game.
Happy birthday to Roy Clark and Dave Edmunds.