Celebrated on February 9th each year, National Pizza Day is a day that celebrates this oven-baked flatbread food that is covered in sauce and cheese. It is a holiday where people can enjoy one of the most popular and iconic dishes in the world and kick back with a slice as they spend time with friends and family.

History

While no one knows when National Pizza Day was created, what we do know is when pizza itself was created. The original pizza was a dish created by the Romans out of placenta bread that was covered in various layers of herbs, sauce, and cheese.

However, while those early dishes were technically pizzas, what people would recognize as the modern pizza didn’t become invented until around the 18th century. This is when some citizens of Naples, Italy, began to create flatbread dishes covered in garlic, basil, cheese, and eventually tomatoes.

During the nineteenth century, Italian immigrants began to bring this dish to the United States. However, it really didn’t become popular until the servicemen returning from World War II came home after developing a taste for it in Italy. This is when the pizza market in the U.S. exploded and made pizza one of the most popular foods in America.

Just how popular is pizza in the United States, you ask? Well, all you have to do is look at these numbers to see how popular pizza is in this country. Every year, four billion pizzas are sold in the U.S. The majority of these are from restaurants, pizza chains, and pizzerias, but about a billion of those are grocery-bought frozen pizzas. For every man, woman, and child in the U.S., over 23 pounds of pizza is consumed. That is a lot of pizza.

Customs, Traditions And Celebrations

There is only one way to celebrate National Pizza Day, and that is by enjoying it in one of its many forms. Go out to your local pizzeria and grab a slice, throw an office pizza party, or simply take home a frozen pizza.