World Pasta Day Timeline

1965

"Uh-oh ..." you know the rest

Campbell Soup Co. exec Donald Goerke invents the wildly popular canned pasta known as SpaghettiOs. (The product came out under Campbell's "Franco-American" brand name.) Marketers determined that kids could eat these o-shaped rings without making a mess. Rejected shape ideas? Cowboys, Native Americans, spacemen, stars, and sports shapes.

1969

Factory made

The U.S. chain restaurant “The Old Spaghetti Factory” opens its first store in Portland. Today you can find them in a dozen states. Fact: Every location features antique lighting, intricate stained-glass displays, large colorful booths, and an old-fashioned trolley car in which guests can dine.

1998

World Pasta Day begins

The event aims to “maximize promotion of an extraordinary, good, healthy, nutritious, accessible and sustainable food — a pillar of the Mediterranean Diet, And you thought it was just linguine?