April 15, 1955: McDonald's (As We Know It) Is Founded

April 15, 1955: Ray Kroc opens the 1st franchised McDonald's restaurant, in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois. Food on planet Earth will never be the same.

Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald, New Hampshire natives whose family had lived in California since the 1920s, opened a hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California in 1940. In 1948, they created the Speedee Service System to produce their meals, a method that became the standard for fast food.

They focused on a reduced menu, consisting of 9 items: Their 15-cent hamburger, a 20-cent cheeseburger, soft drinks, milk, coffee, potato chips, and a slice of pie. They were successful enough to begin franchising their system in 1953, with a restaurant in Phoenix.

In 1954, the brothers bought 8 Multi-Mixer machines for mixing milkshakes from Prince Castle. That caught the attention of the Prince Castle salesman who took the order, Ray Kroc. Kroc went to San Bernardino in 1954, and met the brothers. They hired him as their franchise agent. On April 15, 1955, Kroc opened his 1st McDonald's, in Des Plaines.

Ray Kroc

Kroc became frustrated with the McDonald brothers' desire to maintain a small number of restaurants. The brothers also consistently told Kroc he could not make changes to things such as the original blueprint. Finally, in 1961, Kroc bought the brothers out, for $2.7 million, calculated so as to ensure each brother received $1 million after taxes. (In 2022 money, that $2.7 million works out to about $29.5 million.)

Maurice McDonald died in 1971, at the age of 69. Richard McDonald died in 1998, at 89. They got their million after taxes, and that was about it. Kroc became one of the richest men in the world, dying in 1984, with McDonald's having over 50 billion hamburgers served.

A 2019 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured "Nice" Peter Shukoff playing Ronald McDonald, and "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing the Burger King, with rapper MC Goldiloxx putting on a bright red wig and playing Wendy from Wendy's.

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April 15, 1955 was a Friday. Football was out of season. The NBA season had ended 5 days earlier. The Stanley Cup had been won the night before. And there were only 3 baseball games scheduled for that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. The day before, Elston Howard became the 1st black player for the Yankees in a regular-season game. He did not play in this game, but Moose Skowron, Hank Bauer and Joe Collins hit home runs, and Mickey Mantle wetn 1-for-4. Ted Williams did not play.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 6-5 at the Polo Grounds. Carl Furillo hit 2 home runs, and Duke Snider added 1, in support of Billy Loes. Jackie Robinson went 0-for-5. Willie Mays went 2-for-4.

* And the Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-3 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) This was the major league debut of Herb Score, a 22-year-old lefthanded pitcher from Queens, and he went the distance, striking out 9 -- but he also walked 9. Score would end up striking out more batters than any rookie in major league history, until Dwight Gooden in 1984. Al Kaline went 2-for-4 with an RBI, starting a season that would see him become the American League's youngest-ever batting champion.

January 9, 1984: Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" Commercial

January 9, 1984: Fast-food chain Wendy's introduces its "Fluffy Bun" commercial. But it gets remembered for Clara Peller's line: "Where's the beef?"

Peller was 81 years old, Jewish, and, record-keeping being what it was where and when she was born, she didn’t know exactly where she was born, only that it was in Imperial Russia. She grew up in Chicago, got married and divorced, and had 2 children. She worked as a manicurist, and was still doing that on the set of a commercial in Chicago in 1982, when the advertising agency hired her to appear in commercials. They included a pair of commercials for Jartran truck rentals: "Ed, it's time to take the rabbits to the pet store!"

In the Wendy's commercial, Peller and 2 other old women walk into a restaurant named Big Bun. The other 2 comment on how the burger has a very big, even fluffy bun. When the bun is lifted, the meat patty is seen, and it's so small (How small is it?), it's nearly covered by a pickle slice. This inspires Peller to ask, "Where's the beef?" As the unseen announcer talks about how some restaurants' burgers are too small, she asks again, louder: "Where's the beef?"

The announcer talks about how Wendy's burgers, famously square, are big enough to extend past the bun. Once more, Peller yells, trying to reach whoever's working in the back of the store: "Hey! Where's the beef?" One of the other women points, and Peller says, "Oh, I don't think there's anybody back there."

The slogan caught on so much, people began walking into McDonald's and Burger King, asking, "Where's the beef?" A sequel commercial was ordered, in which the women call up the CEO of Big Bun. He's seen answering the phone on his yacht, the SS Big Bun: "Hello?" Peller yells into the phone, "Wherrrrrrrre's the beef?" And the CEO's toupee flies off his head.

There would be other commercials, including one with Peller teaming up with football legend Dick Butkus to launch a Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" contest. Butkus said the top prize was $20,000. Peller said, "Boy, that's a lot of money!" Butkus pointed to the camera, and said, "Yup, and somebody out there is gonna win it." Peller said, "Who? That old man behind the camera? What's he gonna do with 20 grand?" The idea being that he'd be too old to spend it before he dies. He was probably younger than she was.

Her distinctive voice was the result of emphysema, which finally killed her in 1987. 

On March 11, 1984, a televised debate was held at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, during the Democratic Party Presidential Primaries. Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, pushing his "New Ideas," had gained on the front-runner, former Vice President Walter Mondale. That night, Mondale suggested that the ideas were too vague for voters to understand, and said, "When I hear your New Ideas, I'm reminded of that ad, 'Where's the beef?'" The theater audience broke out in laughter, Hart's campaign never recovered, and Mondale won the nomination -- for all the good it did him.

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January 9, 1984 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Football was between rounds of its Playoffs. There were 2 games in the NBA, each involving one of the New York Tri-State Area teams. The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 111-73 at Madison Square Garden. And the New Jersey Nets beat the Washington Bullets, 107-103 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

One game was played in the NHL: The Edmonton Oilers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 7-3 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.