Michael 'Jim' Delligatti, the inventor of the Big Mac, has died aged 98.
Just how he made it that far, given his fondness for the lard-laden double-decker, is anyone's guess.
Delligatti cooked up the Big Mac in 1965 when, as one of McDonalds' early franchisees, he felt the menu needed a rival for local burger bars' two-storey offerings. In 1967 he put it on the menu at his Uniontown, Pa, restaurant.
McDonalds like what it saw and took it national by 1968.
The rest is history: the Big Mac went on to become a symbol of American culture and capitalism, was accused of felling rainforests and contributed to unknown quantities of myocardial infarctions.
Messiah, or mass-murderer?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @12:29PM
What I thought was so clever was the concept of making the burger look bigger by filling it with yet more bun.
Clever, yes, but not original. Dagwood sandwiches were invented in the 1930s, thirty years before the Big Mac. And how else would you expect to stabilize a tall sandwich except by adding layers of bread.