December 6, 2022 - St. Nicholas Day | National Microwave Oven Day

Welcome to December 6, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate good old St. Nick and shortwave miracles. Saint Nicholas was born around 280 AD in modern day Turkey. His parents died when Nicholas was very young, leaving him with a large inheritance. Out of tragedy was born his generous spirit. Nicholas grew up to be a bishop and was known for his generosity and kindness, especially toward children and the poor. Even after he passed away, his legend grew. Children who left their shoes out by the fire would awake to find money or candy inside and this inspired the tradition of leaving out stockings for Santa. On St. Nicholas Day, celebrate the man who inspired the spirit of giving and discover how fun it still is to give gifts “just because.” In 1945, Percy Spencer, a self taught engineer from Howland, Maine was working on an active radar set when he noticed something strange. A chocolate bar in his pocket had started to melt. The idea for dielectric cooking with a shortwave transmitter had already been demonstrated by Westinghouse at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Spencer picked a winner, however, when he tried his hand at cooking something irresistible with this method, popcorn. Raytheon filed a United States patent for Spencer’s microwave cooking process and by 1947 the first commercially available microwave oven was built. On National Microwave Oven Day, we still love celebrating with something delicious like popcorn. I’m Anna Devere and I’m Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices