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This Day in Pop Culture

This Day in Pop Culture for July 5

Spam and the bikini were introduced to us nine years apart.

July 5, 2020

1–2 minutes

1937: America Gets Introduced to Spam

It is said that Spam was introduced on this day in 1937 by Hormel Foods as “The Meat of Many Uses!” By 1940, it was estimated that 70 percent of urban Americans were eating Spam on a regular basis and after World War II, the product became known around the world.

Today the canned treat is enjoyed in 44 countries around the world. Contrary to popular belief, Spam is only made from six ingredients: pork with ham, salt, water, potato starch, sugar and sodium nitrite.

According to the Spam website, there are 12.8 cans of Spam products consumed every second. Over nine billion cans of Spam have been sold. Big Ben is 1,163 Spam cans tall, and it would take 415,469,599 cans of the stuff to circle the circumference of the Earth. Need to know more? There is a museum devoted to anything and everything related to the Spam brand in Austin MN. (Image: Wikimedia)

1946: The Debut of the Bikini

Women wouldn’t dare to bare when they went to the beach until the 1930’s when two-piece bathing suits arrived on the scene. But even then, only a sliver of skin showed between the two and the navel was always covered. So, it must have been quite a shock on this day when French designer Louis Reard and showgirl Micheline Bernardini modeled the bikini for the first time in Paris.

The garment was “inspired” by a news-making U.S. atomic test that took place off the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean earlier that week. However, in America, the bikini didn’t really take off until 1960. Brian Hyland’s song, “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polk-Dot Bikini” might have had something to do with it.