1890 During President Benjamin Harrison’s administration, the Sherman AntiTrust Act passes after Congress investigates the meatpacking industry.

1898 General Motors sells franchises to car dealers.

1906 Upton Sinclair writes The Jungle, about meatpacking plant horrors.

1914-1918 World War I

1939-1945 World War II

1948 The brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald open a restaurant that serves two kinds of sandwiches - hamburgers and cheeseburgers - and uses paper cups, plates and bags.

1948 William Rosenburg starts Dunkin' Donuts.

1950-1953 Korean War

1950's Hamburgers and fries become a popular meal. Frozen TV dinners appear in the grocery stores.

1952 At the age of sixty-five Harland Sanders starts a new chain, Kentucky Fried Chicken. The first restaurant opens near Salt Lake City, Utah.

1953 Frozen french fries are available. Today the average American eats more than thirty pounds a year.

1955 Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California.

1956 The Interstate Commerce Act passes, building 46,000 miles of road.

1957-1975 Vietnam War

1958 Congress passes a law prohibiting cancer-causing chemicals in processed foods.

1961 Ray Kroc buys McDonald's from the McDonald brothers.

1965 The clown Ronald McDonald is invented by Willard Scott, a former weatherman on NBC's Today Show.

1965 Subway opens in Connecticut.

1968 There are one thousand McDonald's restaurants. Today there are about thirty thousand worldwide.

1969 First manned lunar landing.

1970's The obesity epidemic starts in the United States.

1970 The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is created to set and enforce standards for workers' health and safety.

1971 Workers in a McDonald's restaurant in Iowa join a union. It lasts four years.

1971 McDonald's opens in Japan.

1983 McDonald's adds Chicken McNuggets to the menu.

1987 ConAgra becomes the biggest meatpacker in the world.

1990 McDonald's opens in Plauen, East Germany.

1993 Colorado Springs, Colorado becomes the first public school district in the United States to put in hallway ads for Burger King.

1993 E. coli food poisoning at Jack in the Box - Seattle, Washington.

1993 China's first french fry factory.

1998 The Food and Drug Administration approves a genetically modified tomato, Flavr Savr.

2000 Five employees of Wendy's in Queens, NY are murdered.

2000 Dietary Guidelines for Americans issued in May emphasizes the importance of eating grains and urges Americans to be physically active and maintain a healthy weight.

2001 Americans spend more than $110 billion on fast food. In 1970 they spent $6 billion. 2002 27.4 million pounds of cooked sandwich meat is recalled after listeria, a food borne bacterium, kills 20 people. This is the largest recall in U.S. history.