Today in 1893, the invention of one of the most beloved snack treats baseball fans have ever bought: Cracker Jack.
And while the snack has won many fans over the years for its sweet popcorn and nuts blend, and for its prize in every box, there was a time when the blend was considerably different, and the prizes were nowhere to be found.
Cracker Jack started right around the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago known as the Columbian Exposition.
Frederick and Louis Rueckheim, two German immigrants running a food cart in Chicago, developed a new mix of popcorn, peanuts and molasses and then sold a ton of it at and around the exposition.
As Mental Floss explains, they saw such a spike in demand that they had to boost production and develop a new way to box the stuff and keep it fresh.
Someone (possibly a salesman, and possibly one of the brothers) came up with the name after tasting some of the mix and declaring that it was “a crackerjack,” referring to a compliment of the time.
By 1896, Cracker Jack was the snack’s official name, and it was 1908 that the song “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” cemented the food’s connection with baseball.
Some of its other trademarks were still to come.
For example, the original mascot wasn’t that little kid in the sailor suit and his dog; he came after a pair of Cracker Jack bears.
And there weren’t any prizes in boxes until 1912; before that, the company only put Cracker Jack, or maybe a coupon or two, in Cracker Jack boxes.
That formula worked for most of the rest of the 20th Century, though in modern times the company that owns Cracker Jack has made some changes.
The number of peanuts has mostly declined, despite some calls from fans and even from company officials to put a few more back in the box.
And the prizes all but disappeared!
No more tin whistles or little action figures; instead, you might see a puzzle or a QR code for virtual content.
Plus, there was that time when they made a caffeinated version of the snack called Cracker Jack’d… but probably the less said about that, the better.
Today in 2006, the end to a more than a century-long war, though one that was only ever on paper.
To support its then-ally Russia, Montenegro had symbolically declared war on Japan in the early 1900s.
The two belligerents reached a peace treaty, but that deal didn’t address the Montenegro question.
And then, for almost the whole rest of the 20th Century, it was part of Yugoslavia.
In 2006, when it became an independent nation again, Japan’s deputy foreign minister delivered a letter that not only recognized Montenegro’s sovereignty, it declared the war they’d never actually fought against each other was finally over.
14 Classic Facts About Cracker Jack (Mental Floss)
Montenegro, Japan to declare truce (UPI)
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