Back in the early 1980s, the BBC produced a series of programs called “The Day the Universe Changed.” It was a fascinating look at those moments when discoveries caused mankind to leap ahead and change the outlook on the world.

From the geometry of the Greeks to the Rome’s colonization of Europe to Galileo’s insistence that the earth moved around the sun and not the other way around, these were all giant steps on the road to our current lives.In more modern times, there was Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin and Henry Ford’s adoption of mass production; these have been momentous changes that have affected us all.

In 1955, a 51-year-old milkshake dispenser salesman sat in his car on 14th and E streets in San Bernardino. He was amazed at the amount of business that the restaurant on his calling list was doing. In fact, it had become the “No. 1 hangout for teens” in the area.

It was McDonald’s and, in fact, it had been at this site since 1940, having moved from Monrovia where the business operated by two brothers had started in 1937.

The salesman was Ray Kroc and he had the idea that such a good formula for fast food, with easy-to-make hamburgers, fries and milkshakes, could be marketed elsewhere in the U.S. He persuaded the brothers McDonald to let him franchise the business.

He returned to his hometown of Des Plaines, Illinois, and opened what he called McDonald’s #1. In fact, by then there were nine such places operating in the Southwest.

Within three years, McDonald’s was selling 100 million hamburgers and in 1961 Kroc bought the entire business for $2.7 million. Fast food had arrived.

Kroc opened a marketing department and changed the Speedee logo to one featuring the Hamburglar, which stuck for a decade or two. The original Hamburglar can still be seen at the original location at 14th and E in San Bernardino. Also, the cost of hamburgers back then was 15 cents! That price is not available today.

Living in Europe in the 1970s, I was completely unaware of this change in eating habits across the Atlantic. However, one day I was with our German partner in the city of Mainz and he suggested a short detour to visit his sister who, with her husband, had bought an American restaurant called McDonald’s.

It was about 11:30 a.m. and the place was packed.

“It’s like this from when we open to when we close,” the sister told us.

I didn’t eat there as we had to be on our way, but a couple of years later I was in Den Haag — The Hague — in the Netherlands and the second McDonald’s in that country had just opened. It also was busy and I thought the food was pretty good.

Today, the Golden Arches are as familiar a sight in Europe and the rest of the world as they are here in San Bernardino, where the phenomenon began.

That original site is a McDonald’s Museum and also the headquarters of Juan Pollo, another fast-food chain operated by Albert Okura, who bought the site and kept it as a museum.

If you have an interest in the way an idea can spread throughout the world, then this is a fine place to visit. It is packed with information and memories of all those tempting offers that have been advertised along the way.Kroc’s brainwave might not register along with that of the Wright brothers’ Kitty Hawk or Steve Jobs’ iPhone, but for most of us when Ray Kroc walked out of the place with the agreement in his pocket, the universe of eating certainly changed.

“A Charmed Life” by Trevor Summons is available from amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and major booksellers. You can reach Trevor at trevorsummons@hotmail.com.

Original McDonald’s Museum

Where: 1398 N. E St., San Bernardino

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily

Cost: Free

Information: 909-885-6324