National Cheesecake Day
July 30
The first “cheesecake” was created on the Greek island of Samos. Physical anthropologists excavated cheese moldsthere which were dated circa 2,000 BC. The Ancient Greeks used the simple ingredients of flour, wheat, honey and cheese formed into a cake and baked. History has the first recorded mention of cheesecake as being served to the athletes during the first Olympic Games held in 776 BC. Modern commercial American cream cheese was developed in 1872, when William Lawrence, from Chester, New York, while looking for a way to recreate the soft, French cheese Neufchâtel, accidentally came up with a way of making an “unripened cheese” that is heavier and creamier.
National Paperback Book Day
July 30
Paperbacks have been around as early as the 17th Century in France and Germany. In the English-speaking world James Fenimore Cooper was writing frontier stories published in paperback-like format as far back as 1823. The first respectable mass market paperback in the US was The Good Earth, published by Pocket Books in 1938. This first, un-numbered version, was apparently produced in a small test run of fewer than 3,000 copies and sold only in Macy’s in New York. In early 1939, following the success of this test, Pocket Books produced ten titles, beginning with Pocket Books #1 Lost Horizon, by James Hilton, and also including Shakespeare’s Tragedies, Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh and Agatha Christie’s The Good Earth.
Today’s Birthdays of Note….
Arnold Schwarzenegger – Actor & Governor of California – born in Thal, Austria
Henry Ford– Founder, Ford Motors – born in Greenfield, Michigan
