Every few years, the small town of Troy in Miami County, Ohio celebrates an historic occasion that for a few giddy weeks puts it on the world map of the grocery trade. At the time, National Cash Register, which provided the checkout equipment, was based in Ohio and Troy was also the headquarters of the Hobart Corporation, which developed the weighing and pricing machines for loose items such as meat. It was here, at just after 8 a.m. on June 26, 1974, that the first item marked with the Universal Product Code (UPC) was scanned at the checkout of Troy’s Marsh Supermarket.

It was treated as a ceremonial occasion and involved a little bit of ritual. The night before, a team of Marsh staff had moved in to put bar codes on hundreds of items in the store while National Cash Register installed their scanners and computers. The first “shopper” was Clyde Dawson, who was head of research and development for Marsh Supermarket; the pioneer cashier who “served” him, Sharon Buchanan. Legend has it that Dawson dipped into his shopping basket and pulled out a multi-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Dawson explained later that this was not a lucky dip: he chose it because nobody had been sure that a bar code could be printed on something as small as a pack of chewing gum, and Wrigley had found a solution to the problem. Their ample reward was a place in American history.

Joe Woodland said himself it sounded like a fairy tale: he had gotten the inspiration for what became the bar code while sitting on Miami Beach. He drew it with his fingers in the sand. What he was after was a code of some sort that could be printed on groceries and scanned so that supermarket checkout queues would move more quickly and stocktaking would be simplified.

That such a technology was needed was not his idea: it came from a distraught supermarket manager who had pleaded with a dean at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia to come up with some way of getting shoppers through his store more quickly. The delays and the regular stocktaking were costing him his profits. The dean shrugged him off, but a junior postgraduate, Bernard “Bob” Silver, overheard and was intrigued. He mentioned it to Woodland, who had graduated from Drexel in 1947. Woodland was already an inventor, and he decided to take on the challenge.

So confident was he that he would come up with a solution to the supermarket dilemma, Woodland left graduate school in the winter of 1948 to live in an apartment owned by his grandfather in Miami Beach. He had cashed in some stocks to tide him over. It was in January 1949 that Woodland had his epiphany, though the brilliance of its simplicity and its far-reaching consequences for modern existence were not recognized until many years later.

It was Morse Code that gave him the idea. Woodland had learned it when he was in the Boy Scouts. As he was sitting in a beach chair and pondering the checkout dilemma, Morse came into his head: “I remember I was thinking about dots and dashes when I poked my four fingers into the sand and, for whatever reason—I didn’t know—I pulled my hand toward me and I had four lines. I said ‘Golly! Now I have four lines and they could be wide lines and narrow lines, instead of dots and dashes. Now I have a better chance of finding the doggone thing.’ Then, only seconds later, I took my four fingers—they were still in the sand—and I swept them round into a circle.”

Back in Philadelphia, Woodland and Silver decided to see if they could get a working system going with the technology to hand. They first filed a patent in 1949, which was finally granted in 1952. Woodland and Silver had the right idea, but they lacked the minicomputer and, critically, a very bright light with which to “read” the black and white bar code. On July 16, 1960, Hughes Aircraft Company made one of the most sensational announcements in the history of science. One of their research scientists, Theodore Maiman, had made an “atomic radio light brighter than the center of the sun.” Maiman produced for the newsmen his “laser,” an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

A booklet produced in 1966 by the Kroger Company, which ran one of the largest supermarket chains in North America, signed off with a despairing wish for a better future: “Just dreaming a little . . . could an optical scanner read the price and total the sale. . . . Faster service, more productive service is needed desperately. We solicit your help.”

A small research team at the powerful Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was looking at a few new projects, including the possibility of an automatic bank cash machine, which they decided would not go because “the customer would not buy the concept.” Finally, they lighted on the bar code. They soon found the Woodland and Silver patent. Printing the bull’s-eye bar code proved to be one of the greatest difficulties, because any imperfections would make the whole system unworkable.

On July 3, 1972, the first automated checkstands were installed. More checkstands were installed and a comparison with other Kroger stores told an undeniable and very promising story: the bull’s-eye bar code hit the target, with superior sales figures. But this was just one store in a nationwide grocery and supermarket business worth billions. If the laser and bar code were to revolutionize the checkout counter, they would have to be near universal.

The goal of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Universal Product Identification Code could be stated very simply. The representatives of the grocery trade were charged with finding a way to introduce a Universal Product Code, a bar code of some description that would be common to all goods sold in supermarkets and imprinted by the manufacturers and retailers. The code would carry information about the nature of the product, the company that made it, and so on. In-store computers would “read” this information with scanners and introduce their own variations, which might involve special offers and reductions.

In the end, seven companies, all of them based in the United States, submitted systems to the Symbol Committee, a technical offshoot of the Ad Hoc Committee. International Business Machines (IBM) made a surprise bid. IBM’s George Laurer was handed the specifications for a bar code that had been determined by the Symbol Selection Committee: it had to be small and neat, maximum 1.5 square inches; to save money it had to be printable with existing technology used for standard labels; it had been calculated that only ten digits were needed; the bar code had to be readable from any direction and at speed; there must be fewer than one in 20,000 undetected errors.

Like so many inventions, the UPC was not an immediate success. It was when the mass merchandisers adopted the UPC that it took off, Kmart being the first. In fact, bar code technology was almost made for companies like Walmart, which deal in thousands of goods that need to be catalogued and tracked. The bar code took off in the grocery and retail business in the 1980s, and at the same time began to transform manufacturing. In 2004, Fortune magazine estimated that the bar code was used by 80 to 90 percent of the top 500 companies in the United States.

Though the inspiration for the bar code was the plea by supermarkets for technology that would speed up the checkout, its greatest value to business and industry is that it has provided hard, statistical evidence for what sells and what does not. It has transformed market research, providing a rich picture of people’s tastes, and it has made production lines more efficient.

After many years of anonymity, the man whose knowledge of Morse Code inspired the familiar black and white stripes finally got some recognition. In February 1992, President George H.W. Bush was photographed at a national grocery convention looking intently at a supermarket scanner and having a go at swiping a can with a bar code over it. The New York Times correspondent wrote this up as evidence that it was the first time Bush had seen a supermarket checkout. In other words, he was out of touch with everyday American life.

His aides insisted that he was not struck by the novelty of the technology but by the fact that it could read a damaged bar code. Apocryphal or not, the story stuck and was regarded as damaging to Bush. However, as Woodland’s local newspaper put it: “George Bush isn’t one to hold a grudge. No Sir.” A few months after the checkout incident, Bush presented Woodland with a National Medal of Technology.

Seriously, is there anything better than the heavenly mix of chocolate and peanut butter? There’s something about Reese’s that’s just right. It doesn’t matter if you’re craving something sweet or something salty, Reese’s has you covered.

The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup is the third most popular candy in the US (passed only by M&Ms and Hershey’s), and of all those surveyed, an overwhelming 81 percent liked them. (Only 6 percent didn’t, and who are those people?) The data is interesting: for the most part, people can agree that Reese’s are delicious, regardless of what generation they belong to. When someone wonders what millennials and boomers have in common, the answer is, “A love of Reese’s.”

Reese’s had very unlikely beginnings

While you might expect the culinary genius behind Reese’s to be a lifelong candy-maker, that’s not the case at all. The “Reese” that the candy was named for is creator Harry Burnett Reese, and according to the Hershey Archives, he labored away at a long list of jobs before he even came up with the idea of making candy. He was a factory worker, a farmer, and he even managed a fish hatchery, all before becoming a dairy farmer employed by none other than Milton Hershey.

Even then, the road to success wasn’t a straight one. Reese found himself needing to make some extra cash to support his growing family, and in 1919, he met a man at a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania market who gave him a recipe and asked him to make hard candies. It didn’t work — the candies stuck together — so it was back to the drawing board. Reese tried making a candy bar named for his daughter, a coconut caramel bar, and finally, he started making candies with various centers covered in chocolate. Originally, the chocolates came in assorted boxes: centers were cherry, dates, coconut, and, of course, peanuts. Starting to sound familiar? It absolutely should, because it was the foundation of a great idea.

Reese and Hershey were a match made in heaven

According to Business Insider, Reese always used fresh ingredients for the centers of his candies, as well as Hershey’s chocolate. He had started on one of Hershey’s dairy farms in 1917 before he eventually made the jump to working in the chocolate factory. Reese was still working for Hershey when he decided to strike out on his own. He quit his job in 1923, but first, he went to Hershey and asked for his permission not just to quit, but to set up his own candy company. Hershey said yes under the stipulation that all of Reese’s chocolate had to come from the Hershey company.

He agreed, and five years later, a simple suggestion would change the course of the company. A shop owner Reese was visiting on a sales call asked him if he could make something that was peanut butter on the inside and chocolate on the outside. Fortunately, he said he could, and it would go on to become the company’s flagship product.

Here’s why Reese’s only makes peanut butter cups

Reese’s started out making all sorts of candy, so why do we only get peanut butter cups today? Part of the reason is just that they were an outstanding success – when Reese was first trying to figure out how to make his peanut butter cups, he roasted his peanuts to the point where they were on the verge of burning — and that’s what still gives Reese’s peanut butter that oh-so-distinctive, unmistakable taste. Times were tough but sales were strong, and he was able to weather the lean years of the Great Depression.

But then came World War II and with it, food rationing. Sugar was on the top of the list of ingredients that were suddenly in limited supply. Some of his candies simply had to go and in the end, he kept only the peanut butter cup. It was a practical decision that ended up being a very good one since his peanut butter cups required the least amount of sugar to make.

Reese’s had an unusual ad campaign strategy

Ad campaigns can make or break a product, and in the case of Reese’s, their biggest ad campaigns definitely helped raise their profile. While you might think a well-established brand would want to market their longevity, Reese’s did the opposite. They launched a major 1970s campaign by pretending the candy was something new and that most people didn’t even like the idea of chocolate and peanut butter together.

The premise was simple: ads showed two people, one eating chocolate and one eating peanut butter. The people would collide and say, “Hey, you got peanut butter on my chocolate!” and “Hey, you got chocolate on my peanut butter!” They would then suddenly realize the amazing combo.

Reese’s Pieces stuck around because of E.T.

In the 1970s, Hershey launched a new product that they originally called PBs. These candy-coated peanut butter bits were eventually renamed Reese’s Pieces, and you’d think that the name “Reese’s” would have been enough to make them a major hit. At first, they kind of were. The candies had a successful launch, but according to the Hershey Archives, it wasn’t long before sales started tapering off. That’s not something any company wants to see, so when they got a phone call from Universal Studios, it was a big deal.

The phone call was about a movie called E.T., and Universal wanted to let Hershey know that Reese’s Pieces were going to be in the movie. Not surprisingly, the candy company jumped at the chance to help promote the movie. Hershey took a gamble and agreed to give Universal around a million dollars worth of marketing for E.T. without even seeing a script. Remember, in hindsight, we know what a huge hit the movie was, but at the time, Hershey was essentially taking a chance with a hefty wad of cash.

It paid off. Sales of Reese’s Pieces skyrocketed, and supposedly, it only happened because someone else had said “No,” first — and that was M&Ms.

Some Reese’s have a lot more peanut butter than others

Sure, the chocolate is great and all, but it’s Reese’s unique peanut butter that makes them amazing. If you’re in Camp Peanut Butter, you should know that not all Reese’s are created equal — and fortunately, someone’s done the math so you know just what you should splurge on. Redditor Rustid took a handful of various Reese’s candy, scraped out the peanut butter, and weighed it to come up with a definitive chocolate-to-peanut butter ratio rating. The findings are pretty surprising, and include the fact that the Small Heart contains the least amount of peanut butter — just around 19 percent! Yikes!

On the flip side, there’s the egg and the heart, which have a much more generous amount of about 60 percent peanut butter. The pumpkin and the King Size come in just below that with a touch over 50 percent peanut butter. That means all you peanut butter lovers out there should probably keep in it in mind that Valentine’s Day and Easter are the time to stock your year’s stash. What about those that are on the bottom? Minis come in pretty low on the ratio, too, as they’re around 28 percent peanut butter. Now you know, and you can plan accordingly.

If you get a bad Reese’s, they’ll replace it

No one’s perfect, and sometimes, things slip through the cracks. That’s even happened with Reese’s, and there’s a valuable lesson to be learned here — if you get a Reese’s without the peanut butter, definitely reach out to them on social media. In 2018, an Iowa man named Alex Hentges headed over to their Facebook page to post about his peanut-butter-less Reese’s and ask the company what the heck was going on.

They responded, and Today says that at first, they told him they were going to be sending him some coupons to replace his defective Reese’s. When mail showed up a few days later, it was something much more substantial. Hentges received a letter of apology and a massive box containing about 5 pounds of various Reese’s candy. Win!

While they said that they weren’t sure just how that particular cup missed getting its peanut butter, they said: “…The brand had to make things right!” Now that’s just great customer service.

There’s a scientific reason Reese’s taste so good

Reese’s mix of chocolate and peanut butter is nothing short of magical, and it turns out that there’s a scientific principle at work here. According to Penn State University professor of food science Gregory Ziegler (via Mic), it’s something called “dynamic sensory contrast.” What’s going on here is that your taste buds essentially love it when you eat something with completely contrasting textures — like the smoothness of the chocolate and the slightly crunchy peanut butter.

Couple that with another contrasting combination — the sweetness of the chocolate and the saltiness of the peanut butter — and you’ve got a winning team that no one can resist. There’s a catch, though — these contrasting flavors and textures are so good that it makes you sort of forget how much you’re eating. Ever powered your way through half a bag of Minis without realizing it?

It wasn’t you just being a glutton, it was science! Essentially, these contrasting flavors can taste so good it overrides our sense of feeling full. The principle is also called the “ice cream effect,” and it’s why there’s just always room for ice cream even after the biggest of dinners.

If you’ve never used Reese’s in a cocktail, you’re missing out

Sure, we’ve all had Reese’s on their own, and you’ve probably even baked with them, too. But have you had them in a cocktail? No? Why not! First, grab a bottle of vodka and a handful of Reese’s Pieces. Take out just enough vodka that you can pour in those little candy nuggets of deliciousness, replace the top, and let it sit. It might have to hang out on the top shelf for a few days, but it’s worth the wait. The vodka will be infused with all that Reese’s flavor and when it’s done, it’s cocktail time!

It’s the perfect thing to add to a dessert cocktail. Mix with milk, chocolate liqueur, and add a dash of chocolate syrup. Sounds pretty brilliant, right? Pretty much any drink that features those ingredients — or some cream, chocolate vodka, or Irish cream — is made better with the addition of some Reese’s-infused vodka. Better still? Use it to mix up a boozy milkshake, and it’ll be your new go-to treat.