Mmmmm, Doughnuts

A plain glazed donut. (Photo by Evan-Amos via Wikimedia Commons)

Today is National Doughnut Day.

Here are some things you may not have known about the event and the confectionery itself.

National Doughnut Day was created in 1938 by The Salvation Army to honor their roughly 250 members who served doughnuts to soldiers during World War I. Their original plan was to provide baked goods to servicemen, but finding reliable ovens proved difficult, so they made doughnuts instead.

Doughnuts are made of dough that is deep-fried. They come in many shapes although the ring-shaped doughnut is the traditional shape.

Legend says that doughnuts were invented by Dutch settlers in North America. They were sometimes known by the dutch word oliekoek, or oil cake. They were described by author Washington Irving in 1809 as “balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat and called doughnuts.”

The ring-shaped doughnut was allegedly invented by American Hanson Gregory in 1847. He was supposedly dissatisfied with the raw centers of disk-shaped doughnuts and began punching out the centers before frying them.

As of 2010, Providence, Rhode Island, had the most doughnut shops per capita in the United States, with 25.3 shops per 100,000 people.

Our question: Which nation has the most doughnut shops per capita?

Today is Repeat Day, National Egg Day and Repeat Day.

It’s the birthday of poet Allen Ginsberg, who was born in 1926; musician Curtis Mayfield, who was born in 1942; and TV host Anderson Cooper, who is 49 today.

Because our topic happened before 1960, we’ll spin the wheel to pick a year at random.

This week in 1968, the top song in the U.S. was “Mrs. Robinson” by Simon and Garfunkel.

The No. 1 movie was “Bandolero!,” while the novel “Airport” by Arthur Hailey topped the New York Times Bestsellers list.