This feature looks at some of the earliest mentions of famous names or terms in The Times. Have an idea for someone or something you would like to read about? Send a suggestion in the comments section.

At first, it was strictly a Left Coast phenomenon, as whimsical as the “nutburger” and “porkburger.” When the cheeseburger showed up in The New York Times on June 12, 1938, it was in an article about the oddities of California eateries:

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Nine years later, the newspaper was taking the phenomenon a bit more seriously, though it still admitted that the very notion seemed preposterous. “At first, the combination of beef with cheese and tomatoes, which sometimes are used, may seem bizarre,” The Times intoned on May 3, 1947. “If you reflect a bit, you’ll understand the combination is sound gastronomically”:

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That comment came just three weeks before the same writer, Jane Nickerson, suggested that “The pizza could be as popular a snack as the hamburger if Americans only knew more about it.”

She was right in both cases — the cheeseburger is indeed gastronomically sound.