Pizza originated from flatbread that was topped with tomatoes in Naples, Italy. As Italian immigrants arrived in the United States in the late 19th century, they brought pizza which became popular in cities like New York and Chicago. By the 1960s, pizza had become mainstream in American culture, featured on television and new pizza chain restaurants emerging to meet the growing demand.

1. Pizza

2. Foods similar to pizza
have been made since
the neolithic age.
Records of people
adding other
ingredients to bread
to make it more
flavorful can be found
throughout ancient
history.
O r i g i n s

3. The innovation
that led to flat
bread pizza was
the use
of tomato as a
topping. It was
common for the
poor of the area
around Naples to
add tomato to
their yeast-based
flat bread, and so
the pizza began

4. Pizza
first
made its
appear-
ance in
the
United
States
with the
arrival of
Italian immigrants
in the late 19th
century and was
very popular
among large Italian
populations in
New York City,
Chicago,
Philadelphia
and Saint Louis.
In the
USA

5. By the 1960s, it was
popular enough to be
featured in an episode
of Popeye the
Sailor. Two
entrepreneurs, Ike
Sewell and Ric Riccardo,
invented Chicago-style
deep-dish pizza, in 1943.
They opened their own
restaurant on the corner
of Wabash and Ohio,
Pizzaria Uno. Chain
restaurants sprang up
with pizza's rising
popularity.